GIFT   OF 
MICHAEL  REESE 


LJSl^ 


OF  THE 


[UlTIVERSITy^ 


LIFE 


OLIYER   CROMWELL. 


ROBERT^mJiHEY,  LL.D. 

V^        OF   THE  V 

[U-ITITEESITY; 

NEW    YORK: 

D.    APPLETON    &   CO.,    200   BROADWAY. 

PHILADELPHIA: 

GEORGE  S.  APPLETON,  148  CHESNUT  ST. 


3^ 


^v 


^//^7 


#^ 


(.^q- 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 

Welsh  descent  of  Cromwell 13 

Story  of  Sir  Richard  Cromwell  and  Henry  VIII.        -  15 
Lands  in  Huntingdonshire  granted  to  Sir  Richard  Crom- 
well             16 

Henry  Cromwell  knighted  by  Queen  Elizabeth           -  16 

Robert  Cromwell,  the  Father  of  the  Protector        -        -  17 

Sir  Oliver  Cromwell 17 

Marriage  of  Robert  Crom"w^lt   *     '-^    '-        -        -        -  18 

Birth  of  the  Protector 19 

Traditions  at  Huntingdon 19 

Educated  at  the  Free  Grammar  School  of  Huntingdon  19 

Plays  the  part  of ''  Tactus"  in  the  Comedy  of  "  Lingua''  20 

Curious  Extract  from  ''  Lingua"          ....  20 

Story  of  the  '^  gigantic  Figure'' 21 

Story  of  Cromwell  and  Prince  Charles  in  1604    -        -  22 

Value  of  traditionary  Anecdotes 22 

Removed  to  Sidney  Sussex  College,  Cambridge           •  23 

Placed  at  Lincoln's  Inn -  23 

Returns  to  reside  on  his  paternal  Property                  -  24 
Low  course  of  Life  led  by  Cromwell  at  this  Period        -  25 
Petitions  for  a  Commission  of  Lunacy  against  his  ma- 
ternal Uncle,  Sir  Thomas  Steward        -        -        -  25 


8  CONTENTS. 

Marries  Elizabeth  Bourchier 26 

Returned  to  King  Charles's  first  Parliament  for  the  Bor- 
ough of  Huntingdon 26 

Related  to  Hampden  and  St.  John  -        -        -        -  27 

Returned  a  second  time  for  Huntingdon      -        -        -  28 
Sells  a  part  of  his  Estate  and  stocks  a  grazing  Farm  at 

St.  Ives -  28 

His  Sheep-Irons  and  other  Memorials  of  him  at  St.  Ives 

in  1784 28 

Death  of  Sir  Thomas  Steward 28 

Removes  to  the  Glebe-House  in  the  City  of  Ely         -  29 

Acquires  the  popular  Title  of  *'  Lord  of  the  Fens"        -  29 

State  of  England  at  this  time 29 

Proposed  Colony  called '' Saybrooke"    -        -        -        -  32 

Letter  to  Mrs.  St.  John        -    , 33 

A  common  "  Spokesman  for  Sectaries''  at  this  Period    -  35 

Rebellion  in  Scotland 35 

Dissolution  of  Parliament 36 

Returned  for  Cambridge 37 

Sir  Philip  Warwick's  Description  of  him  at  this  Period  37 

Speaks  intemperately  in  Opposition  to  Lord  Kimbolton  38 

Reprehended  by  Hyde,  the  Chairman     -        -        -        -  39 
Remarkable  Speech  to  Lord  Falkland  on  the  Subject  of 

the  Remonstrance 40 

The  Remonstrance  carried 40 

Hampden's  Character  of  CromweU  to  Lord  Digby     -  42 

Character  of  Hampden -        -  43 

Views  of  the  Catholics  and  Puritans  -        ,        .  44 

Their  Strength  dated  from  the  hour  of  Strafford's  Arrest  45 

Accusations  against  Charles 48 

Memorable  Speech  of  Pym's 60 

The  King  ruined  by  his  want  of  Confidence  in  Himself  51 

Authenticity  and  Value  of  the  Eixoiv  BaciXiKr]       -        -  54 

The  King  miserably  unprepared  for  a  War     -        -        -  56 
The  Events  of  the  Civil  War  determined  by  Accident 

and  Blunder 57 

Rise  of  Cromwell 58 


CONTENTS.  y 
PAGE. 

Cromwell's  Description  of  the  Parliament  Troops  at  the 

Outbreak  of  the  War 59 

Raises  a  Troop  of  Horse  among  his  Countrymen         -  60 

His  Trial  of  their  Courage 61 

Baxter  invited  to  be  their  Pastor                  ...  61 

Takes  possession  of  Cambridge 62 

Secures  the  College  Plate  for  the  Parliament      -        -  62 

Remarkable  Visit  to  his  Uncle  Sir  Oliver        -        -        -  63 
Relief  of  Gainsborough  ''  the  Beginning  of  his  great 

Fortunes" 64 

Narrow  Escape  at  Horncastle 64 

Takes  Hilsdon  House 65 

Opposed  in  public  Opinion  to  Prince  Rupert    •        -        -  65 

Marston  Moor 65 

Folly  of  Hollis  in  accusing  Cromwell  of  Cowardice       -  66 

Earl  of  Manchester     - 67 

Cromwell  a  Republican  at  this  time        .        -        -        ,  68 
His  Quarrel  with  Lord  Manchester     -        -        .        .  70 
Meeting  at  Essex  House  to  disable  the  Designs  of  Crom- 
well             71 

Speech  of  the  Scottish  Chancellor       -        •        •        .  72 

Speech  of  Whitelock  in  Reply 74 

The  Self-Denying  Ordinance  brought  forward     -        -  75 

Clarendon's  Account  of  the  Origin  of  this  Ordinance    -  76 

Fairfax's  Reflections 78 

The  King  takes  Leicester 80 

Battle  of  Nascby 81 

"  The  King's  Cabinet  opened" 82 

Influence  of  a  pure  Religion  upon  the  King        •        -  85 

Cromwell's  Accoimt  of  the  Battle  of  Naseby         -        -  86 

Cromwell  takes  Devizes,  Winchester,  and  Basing-House  87 

Anecdote  of  Lord  Hopton 88 

Anecdote  of  Lord  Astley 89 

Surrender  of  Bristol 89 

The  King  joins  the  Scottish  Army  before  Newark        -  92 

Cromwell  created  a  Baron  by  the  Parliament      -        -  96 

Xew  Writs  issued  for  recruiting  the  Parliament     -        -  96 


10  CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

Anecdote  of  Ludlow        ....---  97 

Rise  of  the  Independents     ..-•.--  98 

Council  of  officers            99 

The  King  carried  from  Holmby  by  Joyce  -        -        -  102 

Cromwell's  Part  in  this  Transaction        -        -        -        -  102 

Downfall  of  the  Presbyterian  Party    -        -        -        -  105 

Presumed  Views  of  Cromwell  at  this  Period          -        -  107 

State  of  the  Army  under  Cromwell     -        -        -        -  l67 

Views  of  Ireton,  the  Son-in-law  of  Cromwell         -        -  110 

V/Cromwell  sincere  at  times Ill 

The  King  at  Carisbrooke 112 

Anecdote  of  Cromwell  and  Ludlow     -        -        -        -  114 

Huntington's  Accusation  against  Cromwell    -        -        -  114 

Cromwell's  Dislike  of  the  Scotch        -        -        -        -  116 

Observations  on  the  Death  of  the  King           -        -        -  117 

""^^Lse  of  Lord  Capel 120 

Cromwell  marches  agaist  Drogheda        ,        .        -        -  122 

■  Leaves  Ifeton  in  Command,  and  arrives  in  London    -  125 

Cromwell  marches  into  Scotland 125 

Battle  of  Dunbar 127 

Charles  II.  marches  into  England 128 

Battle  of  Worcester     -        -        ...        -        -  130 
Cromwell's  Character  of  the  Long  Parliament  at  this 

time          -        . 134 

CromweU  turns  out  the  Parliament     •       -        -        -  136 

CouncU  of  Officers 138 

Praise-God  Barebones  Parliament        -        -        -        -  138 

\j  Cromwell  installed  Lord  Protector          -        -        -        -  139 

Instrument  of  Government 139 

\J  Peace  with  Holland  and  Portugal 140 

Instructions  to  Monk 141 

Act  of  Grace  in  Ireland 142 

State  of  Affiiirs  in  England 144 

Cromwell  compelled  to  govern  tyrannically   -        -        -  145 

Divides  England  for  a  time  into  twelve  Cantons         «  147 

New  Parliament  called 148 

y  War  with  Spain — Jamaica  taken         ...       -  148 


CONTENTS.  11 

PAGE. 

Offered  the  Title  of  King 148 

Refuses  it  upon  the  Plea  of  Conscience        ...  150 

Cromwell  inaugurated  Lord  Protector     -        -        -        -  150 

Fears  and  Views  of  the  Protector       -        -        -        -  151 

Uneasy  State  of  his  Mind  at  this  Period        -        -        -  163 

Death  and  Burial 156 

Concluding  Remarks 156 


fUNIVBESITY 


LIFE   OF   CROMWELL.* 


The  pedigree  of  the  Protector's  family  com- 
mences about  the  middle  of  the  eleventh  century       ^"^ 
with  Glothyan  lord  of  Powys,  who  married  Mor-        u- 
veth  the  daughter  and  heiress  of  Edwyn  ap  Tyd- 

♦1. ''  Histoire  de  Cromwell,  d'apres  les  Memoires  du  Temps 
et  les  Recueils  Parlementaires."  Par  M.  Villemain.  2  tom. 
8vo.  Paris,  1819.— 2.  "  Memoirs  of  the  Protector,  Oliver 
Cromwell,  and  of  his  Sons  Richard  and  Henry.  Illustrated 
by  Original  Letters,  and  other  Family  Papers."  By  Oliver 
Cromwell,  Esq.,  a  Descendant  of  the  Family.  With  Portraits 
from  Original  Pictures.  London,  1820.  4to.— 3.  '^  Oliver  Crom- 
well and  his  Times."  By  Thomas  Cromwell.  London,  1821. 
— 4.  "  Cromwelliana.  A  Chronological  Detail  of  Events  in 
which  Oliver  Cromwell  was  engaged  from  the  year  1642  to  his 
Death  1658 :  with  a  Continuation  of  other  Transactions  to  the 
Restoration."    Westminster,  1810.  Folio. 

The  first  of  these  works  is  in  all  respects  a  very  good  book  ; 
the  second,  which  contains  much  less  original  matter  than  we 
had  hoped  to  find  there,  is  the  commendable  attempt  of  an 
old  and  respectable  gentleman  to  vindicate  the  character  of 
his  great  ancestor.  Mr.  Thomas  Cromwell,  the  author  of  the 
third  work,  appears  not  to  be  a  descendant  of  the  family :  his 
book,  though  very  inferior  to  M.  Villemain's,  and  composed 
in  too  ambitious  a  style,  is  on  the  whole  so  fairly  "written  and 
2 


14  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

well,  lord  of  Cardigan  ; — a  Welsh  genealogist  no 
doubt  would  be  able  to  trace  the  lords  of  Cardigan 
and  Powys  up  to  Cadwallader  and  so  on  to  Bren- 
nus  and  Belinus.  William  ap  Yevan,  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  family  in  the  fifteenth  century, 
was  in  the  service  first  of  Jasper  duke  of  Bedford, 
Henry  the  seventh's  uncle,  afterward  of  that  king 
himself.  His  son,  Morgan  Williams,  married  the 
sister  of  that  Cromwell  whose  name  is  conspicuous 
in  the  history  of  the  Reformation,  and  who,  though 
not  irreproachable  for  his  share  in  the  transactions 
of  a  portentous  reign,  is  on  the  whole  largely  en- 
titled to  commiseration  and  respect.  The  eldest 
son  of  this  marriage  called  himself  Richard  Crom- 
well, alias  Williams,  and  as  the  former  was  the 
more    popular   and    distinctive    name,   the    aliaSy 

intended,  that  we  advise  the  author  to  ask  himself  whether 
some  of  his  statements  are  not  more  conformable  to  the  prej- 
udices with  which  he  took  up  the  subject,  than  to  the  facts 
with  which  he  became  acquainted  in  pursuing  it — to  recon- 
sider the  grounds  and  the  consistency  of  some  of  his  opinions 
— and  if  a  second  edition  of  his  book  should  be  called  for,  to. 
introduce  it  by  a  preface  somewhat  more  modest  and  decorous. 
The  fourth  and  last  article  consists  of  a  series  of  extracts 
from  the  Diurnalls,  and  other  publications  of  those  times. 
With  these  works  before  us,  and  with  the  aid  of  such  other 
materials  as  the  rich  memoirs  of  that  disastrous  age  afford, 
and  the  industry  of  later  writers  has  supplied  (among  whom 
Mr.  Noble  deserves  especial  mention  as  one  of  the  most 
laborious  and  accurate  and  useful  of  the  pioneer  class),  we 
shall  endeavor  to  present  a  compendious  and  faithful  account 
of  Oliver  CromwelFs  eventful  life. 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  15 

though  long  retained  by  the  family  in  their  deeds 
and  wills,  was  dropped  in  ordinary  use.  This 
Richard  was  one  of  the  six  challengers  who  held 
a  tournament  in  1540  at  Westminster  against  all 
comers.  The  justs  were  proclaimed  in  France, 
Flanders,  Spain,  and  Scotland.  The  challengers 
entered  the  field  richly  accoutred,  and  their  horses 
trapped  in  white  velvet ;  the  knights  and  gentle- 
men who  rode  before  them  were  apparelled  in 
velvet  and  white  sarsnet,  and  their  servants  were 
all  in  white  doublets,  and  "  hosen  cut  after  the 
Burgonian  fashion."*  Sir  Richard  was  knighted 
on  the  second  day,  and  performed  his  part  in  the 
justs  so  well  that  the  king  cried  out  to  him, 
"  formerly  thou  wast  my  Dick,  but  hereafter  thou 
shalt  be  my  diamond;"  and  then  dropping  a 
diamond  ring  from  his  finger  bade  him  take  it,  and 
ever  after  bear  such  a  one  in  the  fore  gamb  of  the 
demy-lion  in  his  crest.  As  a  further  proof  of  the 
royal  favor,  he  and  each  of  the  challengers  had  a 
house  and  a  hundred  marks  annually,  to  them  and 
their  heirs  for  ever,  granted  out  of  the  property  of 
the  knights  of  Rhodes,  the  last  prior  of  that  religion 
dying  at  this  time  broken-hearted  for  the  dissolu- 
tion of  his  order. 

Sir  Richard  Cromwell  was  one  of  those  persons 
who  were  enriched  by  the  spoils  of  the  church. 
He  was  appointed  one  of  the  visiters  of  the  re- 
[*  Stow,  by  Howes,  ed.  1631,  p.  679.] 


16  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

ligious  houses,  and  received  for  his  reward  so 
large  a  portion  of  the  plunder,  that  the  church  lands 
which  he  had  possessed  in  Huntingdonshire  only, 
were  let  in  Charles  the  Second's  reign  for  more 
than  ^30,000  a  year ;  and  besides  these  he  had 
very  great  estates  in  the  adjoining  counties  of 
Cambridge,  Bedford,  Rutland,  and  Northampton. 
The  donors  of  estates  to  monasteries  and  churches 
usually  inserted  in  their  deeds  of  gift  a  solemn 
imprecation  against  all  persons  who  should  usurp 
the  property  so  bequeathed,  or  convert  it  to  other 
purposes  than  those  for  which  it  was  consecrated. 
Though  this  proved  no  defence  for  the  estates 
which  had  been  piously  disposed,  it  was  long  be- 
lieved by  the  people  that  the  property  sacrilegious- 
ly obtained  at  the  dissolution  carried  a  curse  with 
it ;  and,  in  a  great  majority  of  instances,  the  facts 
were  such  as  to  strengthen  the  opinion.  Without 
consigning  the  rapacious  courtiers  of  that  age  to 
the  bottomless  pit, "  there  to  be  tormemted  for  ever 
with  Korah,  Dathan,  and  Abiram,  and  with  Judas 
Iscariot,"  it  may  safely  be  said  that  no  conscien- 
tious man  would  have  taken  property  clogged  with 
su^  an  entail. 

Henry,  the  eldest  son  and  heir  of  Sir  Richard, 
was  knighted  by  Queen  Elizabeth,  who  esteemed 
him  highly,  and  honored  him  by  sleeping  at  his 
seat,  once  the  nunnery,  at  Hinchinbrook,  on  her 
return  from  visiting  Cambridge.     He  was  called 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  17 

the  golden  knight  for  his  wealth  and  for  his  liber- 
ality, which  was  of  a  splendid  kind;  for,  dividing 
his  time  between  Hinchinbrook  and  Ramsey, 
whenever  he  returned  to  the  latter  place  he  used 
to  throw  large  sums  of  money  to  the  poor  towns- 
men. The  death  of  his  second  wife  was  one  of 
the  alleged  crimes  for  which  the  witches  of  War- 
boys  were  accused  and  executed  ;  the  property  of 
these  poor  wretches,  amounting  to  40/.,  was  for- 
feited to  Sir  Henry  as  lord  of  the  manor,  and  he 
gave  it  to  the  corporation  of  Huntingdon  on  con- 
dition that  they  should  procure  from  Queen's  Col- 
lege, Cambridge,  every  year  on  lady-day,  a  doctor 
or  bachelor  of  divinity  to  preach  in  that  town 
against  the  sin  of  witchcraft.  That  condition  was 
regularly  fulfilled  about  fifty  years  ago  :  in  what 
manner  it  is  performed  at  present  we  know  not. 
Robert,  the  second  son  of  Sir  Henry,  was  the 
father  of  Oliver,  so  named  after  his  uncle,  the  head 
of  the  family.  That  uncle,  Sir  Oliver,  was  a 
magnificent  personage,  for  whose  expenses  even 
the  enormous  property  which  he  inherited  proved 
inadequate.  * 

Sir  Henry  left  his  younger  sons  estates  of  about 
300/.,  a  year  each  :  those  to  which  Robert  Crom- 
well succeeded  lay  in  and  near  the  town  of  Hun- 
tingdon, having  chiefly  or  wholly  belonged  to  the 
Augustinian  Monastery  of  St.  Mary.  The  house 
in  which  he  resided  was  either  part  of  the  hospital 
2* 


18  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

of  St.  John,  or  built  upon  the  site  and  with  materials 
from  its  ruins.  He  married  Elizabeth,  daughter 
of  William  Steward,  of  the  city  of  Ely,  a  family 
which,  it  is  not  doubted,  was  allied  to  the  royal 
house  of  Scotland.  She  was  the  widow  of  a  Mr. 
Lynne,  and  is  supposed  to  have  brought  him  little 
other  fortune  than  her  jointure.  They  had  ten 
children  ;  Oliver  was  the  second,  and  the  only  one 
of  the  three  boys  who  lived  to  grow  up.  Mr. 
Cromwell  was  member  for  his  own  borough  of 
Huntingdon  in  the  parliament  held  in  the  35th  of 
Elizabeth  [1592-3],  and  he  was  in  the  commission 
of  the  peace.  This  satisfied  all  his  ambition  :  but, 
to  provide  for  so  large  a  family,  he  entered  into  a 
large  brewing  business  ;  it  was  carried  on  by  ser- 
vants, and  Mrs.  Cromwell  inspected  their  accounts, 
which  rendered  her  better  able  to  conduct  the 
business  for  herself*  after  her  husband's  death  in 

♦  Mr.  O.  Cromwell  says,  "  All  this  has  been  said  by  Crom- 
well's enemies,  for  the  purpose  of  degrading  him  ;  but  no 
evidence  to  be  relied  on  is  produced  in  support  of  these  asser- 
tions. The  truth  is,  nothing  certain  is  likely  to  be  known  of 
his  early  life,  or  the  pecuniary  circumstances  of  his  parents." 
"  And,"  he  adds,  ^'  that,  as  Cromwell,  in  a  speech  to  his 
Parliament,  said  he  was  a  gentleman,  neither  living  in  any 
considerable  height,  nor  yet  in  obscurity,  such  an  account  of 
himself  is  a  sufficieut  confutation  of  his  and  his  family's  nar- 
row circumstances,  and  their  engagements  in  trade  in  conse- 
quence." This  gentlemen  very  justly  observes  that  the  state- 
ment, "  if  true,  could  not  be  deemed  discreditable  to  the 
family,  the  youngest  brothers  of  the  best  families  in  this 
country  engaging  in  trade  and  thereby  raising  themselves  to 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  19 

1617.  Oliver  was  born  April  25,  1599.  A 
nonjuror,  who  afterward  purchased  and  inhabited 
the  house,  used,  when  he  showed  the  room  in 
which  the  protector  was  born,  to  observe  that  the 
devil  was  behind  the  door,  alluding  to  a  figure  of 
Satan  in  the  hangings.  It  is  said,  on  the  authority 
of  the  same  person,  who  was  curious  in  collecting 
what  traditions  remained  concerning  so  eminent 
a  man,  that  Oliver,  when  an  infant,  was  in  as  much 
danger  from  a  great  monkey  as  Gulliver  was  at 
Brobdignag.  At  his  grandfather's  house  one  of 
these  mischievous  creatures  took  him  out  of  the 
cradle,  carried  him  upon  the  leads  of  the  house,  to 
the  dreadful  alarm  of  the  family  (who  made  beds 
and  blankets  ready,  in  the  forlorn  hope  of  catching 
him),  and  at  last  brought  him  safely  down.  He 
was  saved  from  drowning  in  his  youth  by  Mr.  John- 
son, the  curate  of  Cunnington. 

Oliver  was  educated  at  the  free  grammar-school 
of  his  native  town,  by  Dr.  Beard,*  whose  severity 

fortune  and  independency."  With  this  feeling  there  is  an  in- 
consistency in  resenting  the  statement  as  a  wrong.  Of  such 
facts  no  other  proof  is  possible  than  contemporary  assertions, 
uncontradicted  at  the  time  j  these  are  so  numerous  that  it  is 
almost  absurd  to  question  them ;  and  what  renders  the  fact 
highly  probable  is,  that  Mrs.  Cromwell  '^  lived  in  a  very  hand- 
some, frugal  manner,  and  gave  each  of  her  daughters  fortune 
sufficient  to  marry  them  to  persons  of  genteel  families  j" 
which  she  could  never  have  done  from  her  dowry  alone,  being 
only  60/.  a  year. 

*  The  frontispiece  to  the  Theatre  of  God's  Judgments  is 
said  to  be  a  portrait  of  this  severe  schoolmaster.    It  represents 


20  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

toward  him  is  said  to  have  been  more  than  what . 
was  usual  even  in  that  age  of  barbarous  school- 
disciple.  He  was  a  resolute,  active  boy,  fond  of 
engaging  in  hazardous  exploits,  and  more  capable 
of  hard  study  than  inclined  to  it.  His  ambition 
was  of  a  different  kind,  and  that  peculiar  kind  dis- 
covered itself  even  in  his  youth.  He  is  said  to 
have  displayed  a  more  than  common  emotion  in 
playing  the  part  of  Tactus  who  finds  a  royal  robe 
and  a  crown,  in  the  old  comedy  of  Lingua. 
The  comedy  was  certainly  performed  at  the  free- 
school  of  Huntingdon  in  his  lime,  and  if  Oliver 
played  the  part,  the  scene  in  question  is  one  which 
he  must  have  remembered  with  singular  feeling, 
whatever  he  may  have  felt  in  enacting  it. 

**  Was  ever  man  so  fortunate  as  I, 
To  break  his  shins  at  such  a  stumbling-block  ! 
Roses  and  bays  pack  hence  !  this  crown  and  robe 
My  brows  and  body  circles  and  invests. 
How  gallantly  it  fits  me.    Sure  the  slave 
Measured  my  head  that  wrought  this  coronet. 
They  lie  that  say  complexions  can  not  change  j 
My  blood's  ennobled,  and  I  am  transformed 
Unto  the  sacred  temper  of  a  king. 
Methinks  I  hear  my  noble  parasites 
Styling  me  CaBsar  or  great  Alexander, 
Licking  my  feet,  and  wondering  where  I  got 
This  precious  ointment.    How  my  pace  is  mended  ! 
How  princely  do  I  speak,  how  sharp  I  threaten  ! — 
Peasants,  I'll  curb  your  headstrong  impudence, 

him  with  two  scholars  standing  behind,  a  rod  in  his  hand,  and 
As  in  prasenh  proceeding  from  his  mouth. 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  21 

And  make  you  tremble  when  the  lion  roars, 

Ye  earth-bred  worms  ! — 

Poets  will  write  whole  volumes  of  this  change."* 

He  himself  is  said  often,  in  the  height  of  his 
fortune,  to  have  mentioned  a  gigantic  figure  which, 
when  he  was  a  boy,  opened  the  curtains  of  his  bed, 
and  told  him  he  should  be  the  greatest  person  in 
the  kingdom.  Such  a  dream  he  may  very  proba- 
bly have  had  ;  and  nothing  can  be  more  likely 
than  that  he  should  seek  to  persuade  himself  it 
was  a  prophetic  vision,  when  events  seemed  to 
place  the  fulfilment  within  his  reach.  But  that  his 
Uncle  Steward  told  him  it  was  traitorous  to  relate 
it,  and  that  he  was  flogged  for  his  relation  by  Dr. 
Beard,  at  his  father's  particular  desire,  are  addi-' 
tions  to  the  story  which  are  disproved  by  their 
absurdity  ;  however  loyal  his  parents,  and  however 
addicted  to  the  use  of  the  rod  his  master,  they 
would  no  more  have  punished  him  at  that  time  for 
such  a  fancy,  than  for  dreaming  that  he  was  to  be- 
come Grand  Turk  or  Prester  John.    There  is  another 

[»  Dodsley's  old  plays,  ed.  1825,  vol.  v.,  p.  114.  The  first 
edition  of  "  Lingua,"  a  play  attributed  to  Anthony  Brewer,  is 
dated  1607.  That  Cromwell  had  acted  a  part  in  this  play,  we 
are  told  by  Simon  MUler,  a  stationer,  in  a  list  of  publications 
appended  to  Heath's  New  Book  of  Royal  Martyrs.  This 
Heath  wrote  the  earliest  printed  Life  of  Oliver  Cromwell,  en- 
titled '^  Flagellum,  or  the  Life  and  Death  and  Birth  and  Burial 
of  Oliver  Cromwell  the  late  Usurper."  (1663).  Miller  was 
the  publisher  of  an  edition  of ''  Lingua"  in  1657,  and  may  have 
had  his  information  from  Heath.] 


22  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

tale  concerning  his  childhood,  which,  as  well  as 
all  these  anecdotes,  the  living  historian  of  the 
family  treats  as  an  absolute  falsehood  ;  that  being 
at  his  uncle's  house  at  Hinchinbrook,  when  the 
royal  family  rested  there  on  their  way  from  Scot- 
land, in  1604,  he  was  brought  to  play  with  Prince 
Charles,  then  duke  of  York,*  quarrelled  with  him, 
beat  him,  and  made  his  noise  bleed  profusely — 
which  was  remembered  as  a  bad  omen  for  the  king 
when  Cromwell  began  to  distinguish  himself  in  the 
civil  wars.  Mr.  Noble  relates  this  only  as  the 
tradition  of  the  place,  adding  that  Hinchinbrook 
was  generally  one  of  the  resting-places  of  the 
royal  family  on  the  northern  road.  Such  anecdotes 
relating  to  such  a  man,  e;^n  though  they  may  be 
of  doubtful  authenticity,  arfe  not  unworthy  of  pres- 
ervation. The  fabulous  history  of  every  country 
is  a  part  of  its  history,  and  ought  not  to  be  omitted 
by  later  and  more  enlightened  historians  ;  because 
it  has  been  believed  at  one  time,  and  while  it  was 
believed  it  influenced  the  imagination,  and  thereby,  ^ 
in  some  degree,  the  opinions  and  the  character  of 
the  people.  Biographical  fables,  on  the  other 
hand,  are  worthy  of  notice,  because  they  show  in 
what  manner  the  celebrity  of  the  personage,  in 
whose  honor  or  dishonor  they  have  been  invented, 
has  acted  upon  his  countrymen.     Moreover,  there 

[*  Among  Prince  Henry's  expenses  is  a  "  payment  of  xxxiiili. 
for  three  Hawkes  bought  of  Sir  Oliver  Cromwell."] 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  23 

is  in  the  curiosity  which  we  feel  concerning  the 
earnest  actions  of  remarkable  men,  an  interest  akin 
to  that  which  is  attached  to  the  source  of  a  great 
river.  There  are  many  springs  in  this  country 
more  beautiful  in  themselves  and  in  their  accom- 
paniments than  the  fountains  of  the  Thames,  or 
the  Danube,  or  the  Nile,  but  how  inferior  in  kind 
and  in  degree  is  the  feeling  which  they  excite  ! 

Before  Cromwell  had  quite  completed  his  seven- 
teenth year,  he  was  removed  from  the  school  at 
Huntingdon  to  Sydney  Sussex  College,  Cam- 
bridge.* Though  his  passion  for  athletic  exercises 
still  continued,  so  much  so  that  he  is  said  to  have 
acquired  the  name  of  a  royster  in  the  university, 
it  appears  certain,  that  the  short  time  which  he 
passed  there  was  not  mispent,  but  that  he  made 
a  respectable  proficiency  in  his  studies.  He  had 
not,  however,  been  there  more  than  a  year  when 
his  father  died,  and  his  mother,  to  whose  care  he 
appears  to  have  been  left,  removed  him  from  college. 
,  It  has  been  affirmed  that  he  was  placed  at  Lincoln's 
Inn,  but  that  instead  of  attending  to  the  law  he 
wasted  his  time  "  in  a  dissolute  course  of  life,  and 
good-fellowship  and  gaming."  His  descendant 
denies  this,  because  his  name  is  not  to  be  found  in 
the  records  of  Lincoln's  Inn  ;  to  which  sufficient 
disproof  he  adds,  that  "  it  is  not  likely  a  youth  of 
eighteen  or  nineteen  should  in  those  days  have 
[•  23d  AprU,  1616.    Noble,  i.  254,  ed.  1787.] 


24  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

been  sent  to  an  inn  of  court."  The  unlikelihood 
is  not  apparent ;  there  is  no  imaginable  reason 
why  he  should  have  been  represented  as  a  student 
of  law  if  he  had  never  been  so,  and  the  probability 
is  that  he  was  entered  at  some  other  of  the  inns 
of  court.  Returning  thence  to  reside  upon  his 
paternal  property,  he  is  said  to  have  led  a  low  and 
boisterous  life  ;  and  for  proof  of  this,  a  letter  to  his 
cousin,  Mrs.  St.  John,  is  quoted,  in  which  he  says, 
— "  You  know  what  my  manner  of  life  hath  been. 
Oh,  I  lived  in  and  loved  darkness,  and  hated  the 
light ;  I  was  a  chief,  the  chief  of  sinners.  This 
is  true ;  I  hated  godliness,  yet  God  had  mercy  on 
me."  The  present  Mr.  Oliver  Cromwell  argues 
that  no  such  meaning  is  to  be  inferred  from  the 
words,  but  that  such  "  it  is  conceived  would  be 
the  language  of  any  person  of  the  present  day,  who, 
after  professing  Christianity  in  the  common  loose 
way  in  which  it  is  commonly  professed,  and  even 
preserving  themselves  free  from  the  commis- 
sion of  all  gross  sins  and  immoral  acts,  should  be- 
come a  convert  to  the  stricter  doctrines  and  pre- 
cepts of  the  Scriptures,  as  held  by  those  who  are 
deemed  to  be  the  evangelical  or  orthodox  believers 
of  these  times."  Mr.  Cromwell  is  right ;  the 
letter  proves  nothing,  except  that  there  is  a  good 
deal  of  the  same  canting  now  that  there  was  then, 
cant  indeed  being  a  coin  which  always  passes 
current.     The  language  of  an  evangelical  professor 


LIFE    OF    CROM 

concerning  his  own  sins  and 
wickedness,  is  no  more  to  be  tak§n  literally  than 
that  of  an  amorous  sonnetteer  who  ^^tJmplains  ol 
flames  and  torments. 

'  The  course  of  CromwelPs  conduct,  however,  at 
this  time  was  such  as  to  offend  his  paternal  uncle. 
Sir  Oliver,  and  his  maternal  one,  Sir  Thomas 
Steward.  The  offence  given  to  the  former  is  said 
to  have  been  by  a  beastly  frolic,  for  which  the 
master  of  Misrule  very  properly  condemned  him 
to  the  discipline  of  a  horsepond.  The  story,  from 
its  very  filthiness,  is  incredible  :  Bates,  however, 
would  not  have  related  it  unless  he  had  believed 
it,  and  Oliver's  practical  jests  were  sometimes 
dirty  as  well  as  coarse.  The  means  by  which  he 
displeased  Sir  Thomas  are  less  doubtful  and  of  a 
blacker  die : — wishing  to  get  possession  of  his 
estate,  he  represented  him  as  not  able  to  govern 
it,  and  petitioned  for  a  commission  of  lunacy 
against  him,  which  was  refused.  Because  Sir 
Thomas  was  reconciled  to  him  afterward,  and 
ultimately  left  him  the  estate,  the  present  Mr.  O. 
Cromwell  denies  the  fact,  saying,  "  This  supposed 
attempt  to  deprive  his  uncle  of  his  estate  would 
have  been  so  atrocious  and  unpardonable,  that  the 
reasonable  conclusion  must  be,  that  this  disposi- 
tion in  favor  of  Cromwell  proves  the  falsehood  of 
the  story."  A  better  ground  of  defence  would 
have  been  to  maintain  that  the  uncle  was  not  in 
3 


-? 


^ 


v26)^  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

I 

his  sound  senses,  and  to  allege  the  bequest,  after 
such  provocation,  in  proof  of  it.  The  story  is 
most  certainly  true  ;  it  is  established  by  a  speech 
of  Archbishop  Williams  to  the  king  concerning 
Cromwell,  wherein  he  says,  "  Your  majesty  did 
him  but  justice  in  refusing  his  petition  against  Sir 
Thomas  Steward  of  the  isle  of  Ely  ;  but  he  takes 
them  all  for  his  enemies  that  would  not  let  him 
undo  his  best  friend."  Mr.  O.  Cromwell  has  over- 
looked this  evidence.  But  he  is  not  the  only 
modern  biographer  who  has  thought  proper  to  con- 
tradict the  facts  which  are  recorded  of  an  ancestor, 
because  it  is  not  agreeable  to  believe  them.  The 
probability  is,  that  Cromwell,  who  was  not 
naturally  a  wicked  man,  thought  his  petition  well 
grounded. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  follies  and  vices 
of  his  youth,  it  is  certain  that  he  had  strength  and 
resolution  enough  to  shake  them  off.  As  soon  as 
he  came  of  age  he  married*  Elizabeth^  daughter 
of  Sir  James  Bourchier,  of  Felsted,  in  Essex,  a 
woman  whose  irreproachable  life  might  have  pro- 
tected her  from  obloquy  and  insult,  if  in  the  heat 
of  party-spirit  anything  were  held  sacred.  She 
brought  him  some  fortune,  and,  in  the  year  1625, 
he  was  returned  to  King  Charles's  first  parliament 
for  the  borough  of  Huntingdon.     There  was  no 

[*  20th  August,  1620.  In  the  church  of  St.  Giles,  Cripple- 
gate,  the  church  ii>  which  Milton  is  buried.    Noble,  i.  123.] 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  27 

disaffection  in  his  family  either  to  the  church  or 
state  ;  they  had  indeed  enjoyed  in  a  peculiar  man- 
ner, the  bounty  as  well  as  the  favor  of  the  crown. 
But  Cromwell  was  not  likely  to  behold  the  meas- 
ures of  the  government  with  indifference  or  com- 
placency ;  a  man  so  capable  of  governing  well 
perceived  the  errors  which  were  committed  ;  and 
the  displeasure  thus  reasonably  excited,  was 
heightened  by  accidental  and  personal  circumstan- 
ces till  it  became  a  rooted  disaffection.  To  this 
some  of  his  family  connexions  must  have  contribu- 
ted in  no  slight  degree.  Hampden  was  his  first 
cousin  ;  and...St^Joh%  who  was  connected  with 
the  Cromwells  by  his  first  marriage,  married  for 
his  second  wife  one  who  stood  in  the  same  degree 
of  near  relationship  to  him.  They  were  unques- 
tionably two  of  the  ablest  men  in  that  distinguish- 
ed age  ;  and  Hampden,  who  had  sagacity  enough 
to  perceive  the  talents  of  his  kinsman  when  they 
were  not  suspected  by  others,  possessed  a  great 
influence  over  his  mind  ;  Cromwell  "  followed  his 
advice  while  living,  and  revered  his  memory  when 
dead."  These  eminent  men  were  both  deadly 
enemies  at  heart  to  the  established  church,  and 
the  puritanical  bias  which  their  conversation  was 
likely  to  impart  was  increased  by  his  own  dispo- 
sition, for  in  the  early  part  of  his  life  it  is  certain 
that  he  was  of  a  fanatical  constitution.  He  often 
supposed  himself  to  be  dying,  and  called  up  his 


28  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

physician  at  unseasonable  hours  m  causeless  alarm  ; 
and  that  physician's  account  of  him  is,  that  *'  he 
was  quite  a  splenetic,  and  had  fancies  about  the 
Cross  in  the  town."* 

Cromwell  sat  for  the  same  borough  in  the  par- 
liament of  1628,  and  spoke  severely  and  justly 
against  the  promotion  of  Dr.  Manwaring  ;  but  by 
complaining  at  the  same  time  of  persons  who 
"  preached  flat  popery,"  which  was  a  flat  falsehood, 
he  lessened  the  effect  of  his  opinion  upon  unprej- 
udiced and  judicious  minds.  Three  years  after- 
ward he  sold  some  of  his  estates  for  1 800Z. ;  stock- 

yi  ed  a  grazing  farm  at  St.  Ives,  and  removed  thither 
from  Huntingdon.  The  barn  which  he  built  here 
was  still  standing,  and  bore  his  name,  when  Mr. 
Noble  published  his  Memoirs  of  the  Protectoral 
House  ;t  and  the  farmer  who  then  rented  the  es- 
tate marked  his  sheep  with  the  identical  marking 
irons  which  Oliver  used,  and  which  had  0.  C.  up- 
on them.:j:  While  he  resided  here  he  returned 
some  money  which  he  had  formerly  won  by  gam- 
ing, and  which  he  considered  it  sinful  to  keep. 
The  sums  were  not  inconsiderable  for  that  time 
and  for  his  means,  one  of  them  being  301.  and 

lA       another  120/.     The  death  of  Sir  Thomas  Steward 

[*  Sir  Philip  Warwick^s  Memoirs,  ed.  1702,  p.  249.] 
[t  The  first  edition  of  Noble's  memoirs  was  published  in 
1784.] 
IX  Noble,  i.  262.] 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  29 

placed  him  in  affluence,  and,  in  1635,  he  removed 
to  the  Glebe  House  in  the  city  of  Ely.  He  had 
now  a  large  family,  and  took  his  full  share  in  local 
business  as  an  active  country  gentleman,  not  al- 
ways as  a  useful  one,  for  the  scheme  of  draining 
the  fens  of  Lincolnshire  and  the  isle  of  Ely,  which 
his  father  and  many  others  of  his  relations  had  pro- 
moted, was  defeated  chiefly  by  his  opposition. 
There  was  a  popular  cry  against  the  measure,  be- 
cause the  inhabitants  enjoyed  a  customary  right  of 
commoning  and  fishing  there  ;  Cromwell  therefore 
became  so  great  a  favorite  with  them  for  espousing 
their  immediate  interest,  that  he  was  called  the 
Lord^i_  the  Fens.  It  is  more  likely  that  he  was 
actuated  by  a  desire  of  ingratiating  himself  with  the 
people  of  the  country  on  this  occasion,  than  that  so 
far-sighted  and  able  a  man  should  not  have  per- 
ceived the  great  and  obvious  utility  of  the  measure 
which  he  resisted.  Afterward,  when  the  act 
passed  under  the  commonwealth,  he  was  ap- 
pointed one  of  the  commissioners ;  and  the  work 
proceeded  with  his  favor  when  he  was  Protector. 
The  state  of  England,  though  the  country  was 
rapidly  improving,  and  prosperous  beyond  all  for- 
mer example,  was  such  as  might  well  trouble  ev- 
ery upright  and  thoughtful  observer.  The  wisest 
man  could  not  possibly  foresee  in  what  the  conflict 
of  opinions,  which  had  begun,  was  likely  to  ter- 
minate :  this  only  was  certain,  that  there  must 
3* 


30  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

inevitably  be  great  evil  in  the  process,  and  that 
whatever  extreme  prevailed,  the  end  must  needs 
be  one  which  no  good  man,  or  true  friend  of  his 
country,  could  contemplate  without  sorrow.  In 
any  other  age,  jCharles  I.  would  have  been  the 
best  and  the  most  popular  of  kings.  His  un- 
ambitious and  conscientious  spirit  would  have 
preserved  the  kingdom  in  peace  ;  his  private  life 
would  have  set  an  example  of  dignified  virtue,  such 
as  had  rarely  been  seen  in  courts  ;  and  his  love 
of  arts  and  letters  would  have  conferred  permanent 
splendor  upon  his  age,  and  secured  for  himself  the 
grateful  applause  of  after  generations.  But  he 
succeeded  to  a  crown  whose  prerogatives  had  been 
largely  asserted  and  never  defined  ;  to  a  scanty 
revenue,  and  to  a  popular  but  expensive  war,  no- 
wise honorable  to  the  nation  either  in  its  cause  or 
conduct.  The  history  of  his  reign  thus  far  had 
been  a  series  of  errors  and  faults  on  all  sides,  so 
that  an  impartial  observer  would  have  found  it  dif- 
ficult to  satisfy  himself  whether  the  king  and  his 
ministers  or  the  parliaments  were  the  most  repre- 
hensible ;  or  which  party  had  given  the  greatest 
provocation,  and  thereby  afforded  most  excuse  for 
the  conduct  of  the  other.  Unable  to  govern  with 
a  parliament,  and  impatient  of  being  governed  by 
one,  Charles  had  tried  the  perilous  experiment  of 
governing  Avithout  one.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  liberties  of  Great  Britain  must  have  been 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  31 

destroyed  if  that  experiment  had  been  successful ; 
and  successful  in  ail  human  probability  it  would 
have  been,  if  a  spirit  of  religious  discord  had  not 
possessed  the  nation.  For  though  the  system  of 
Charles's  administration  was  arbitrary,  and  there- 
fore tyrannical,  the  revenue  which  he  raised  by 
extraordinary  means  was  not  greater  than  what 
would  cheerfully  have  been  granted  him  in  the 
ordinary  and  just  course  of  government ;  it  was 
frugally  administered,  and  applied  in  a  manner 
suitable  to  the  interest  and  honor  of  the  kingdom, 
which,  for  twelve  years,  in  the  words  of  Lord 
Clarendon,  "  enjoyed  the  greatest  calm  and  the 
fullest  measure  of  felicity  that  any  people  in  any 
age,  for  so  long  time  together,  have  been  blessed 
with,  to  the  wonder  and  envy  of  all  the  other  parts 
of  Christendom."  Foreign  and  domestic  trade 
flourished  and  increased ;  towns  grew,  not  with  a 
forced  and  unhealthy  growth,  occasioned  by  the 
unnatural  activity  of  a  manufacturing  system,  but 
in  just  proportion  to  the  growing  industry  and 
wealth  of  the  country.  England  was  respected 
abroad  and  prosperous  at  home  ;  it  even  seemed 
as  if  the  physical  condition  of  the  island  had  un- 
dergone a  beneficial  change,  for  the  visitations  of 
pestilence  were  abating,  which  had  been  so  fre- 
quent in  the  preceding  reign.  But  a  severer  judg- 
ment was  impending  over  a  headstrong  generation, 


32  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

insensible  of  the  blessings  with  which  they  were 
favored,  and  ungrateful  for  them. 

While  this  long  calm  endured,  the  most  sagacious 
politicians  were  so  far  from  perceiving  any  indi- 
cations of  the  storm  which  they  were  to  direct, 
that,  believing  the  country  was  doomed  and  re- 
signed to  the  loss  of  its  liberties,  they  resolved  upon 
leaving  it,  and  transporting  themselves,  in  volunta- 
ry exile,  to  a  land  of  freedom.  Lord  Brooke, 
Lord  Say  and  Sele  and  his  sons,  Pym,  and  other 
distinguished  men  of  the  same  sentiments,  were 
about  to  remove  to  a  settlement  in  New  England, 
where  the  name  of  Saybrooke,  in  honor  of  the  two 
noble  leaders,  had  already  been  given  to  a  town- 
ship in  which  they  were  expected.  Eight  vessels 
with  emigrants  on  board  were  ready  to  sail  from 
the  Thames,  when  the  king  by  an  order  of  council 
forbade  their  departure,  and  compelled  the  intended 
passengers  to  come  on  shore,  fatally  for  himself; 
for  among  those  passengers  Haslerigge  and  Hamp- 
den, and  Cromwell,  with  all  his  family,  had  actual- 
ly embarked.  There  are  few  facts  in  history 
which  have  so  much  the  appearance  of  fatality 
as  this. 

Charles  and  his  ministers  feared  that  so  many 
discontented  and  stirring  spirits  would  be  perilous 
in  a  colony  which,  being  decidedly  hostile  to  the 
church  of  England,  might  easily  be  alienated  from 
the  state.     They  saw  clearly  the  remote  danger, 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  33 

but  they  were  blind  to  the  nearer  and  greater  evil ; 
and  in  that  error  they  stopped  the  issue  which  the 
peccant  humors  had  opened  for  themselves. 
Cromwell  returned  to  Ely,  and  there  continued  to 
lead  a  respectable  and  pious  life.  A  letter  which 
he  wrote  at  this  time  to  Mrs.  St.  John  (already 
mentioned)  has  been  preserved  ;  it  is  better  ex- 
pressed than  most  of  his  compositions,  and  is  re- 
markable, not  merely  for  its  characteristic  lan- 
guage, but  for  a  passage  which  may  perhaps  be 
thought  to  imply  the  hope,  if  not  the  expectation, 
of  making  himself  conspicuous  in  defence  of  his 
religious  sentiments.  "  Dear  Cousin,"  he  says, 
"  I  thankfully  acknowledge  your  love  in  your  kind 
remembrance  of  me  upon  this  opportunity.  Alas, 
you  do  too  highly  prize  my  lines,  and  my  company ; 
I  may  be  ashamed  to  own  your  expressions,  con- 
sidering how  unprofitable  I  am  and  the  mean  im- 
provement of  my  talent.  Yet  to  honor  my  God  by 
declaring  what  he  hath  done  for  my  soul,  in  this  I 
am  confident,  and  I  will  be  so.  Truly  then  this 
I  find,  that  he  giveth  springs  in  a  dry  and  barren 
wilderness,  where  no  water  is.  I  live  (you  know 
where)  in  Mesheck,  which  they  say  signifies  pro- 
longing ;  in  Kedar,  which  signifieth  blackness : 
yet  the  Lord  forsaketh  me  not.  Though  he  do 
prolong,  yet  he  will,  I  trust,  bring  me  to  his 
tabernacle,  to  his  resting-place.  My  soul  is  with 
the  congregation  of  the  first  born  :  my  body  rests 


d4  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

in  hope  ;  and  if  here  I  may  honor  my  God,  either 
hy  doing  or  sufferings  1  shall  he  more  glad.  Truly 
no  poor  creature  hath  more  cause  to  put  forth  him' 
self  in  the  cause  of  his  God  than  I.  I  have  had 
plentiful  wages  before  hand,  and  I  am  sure  I  shall 
never  earn  the  least  mite.  The  Lord  accept  me 
in  his  Son,  and  give  me  to  walk  in  the  light,  and 
give  us  to  walk  in  the  light,  as  he  is  in  the  light : 
He  it  is  that  enlighteneth  our  blackness,  our  dark- 
ness. I  dare  not  say  he  hideth  his  face  from  me  ; 
he  giveth  me  to  see  light  in  his  light.  One  beam 
in  a  dark  place  hath  exceeding  much  refreshment 
in  it ;  blessed  be  his  name  for  shining  upon  so  dark 
a  heart  as  mine  !" 

This  readiness  to  do  and  to  suffer  in  a  righteous 
cause  might  have  been  confined  to  the  ignoble 
theatre  of  a  bishop's  court,  if  a  wider  field  had  not 
soon  been  opened  for  puritanical  ambition.  Crom- 
well had  usually,  attended  the  church-service, 
joining  probably,  like  Baxter,  "  in  the  common 
prayer,  with  as  hearty  fervency,  as  afterward  he 
did  with  other  prayers  :" — "  As  long  as  I  had  no 
prejudice  against  it,"  says  that  good  man,  "  I  had 
no  stop  in  my  devotions  from  any  of  its  imperfec- 
tions." But  even  before  he  left  Huntingdon  his 
house  had  been  a  retreat  for  those  non-conforming 
preachers  who  had  provoked  the  law  ;  and  a  build- 
ing behind  it  is  shown,  which  he  is  said  to  have 
erected  for  their  use,  and  in  which,  according  to 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  35 

the  same  tradition,  he  sometimes  edified  them  by 
a  discourse  himself.  It  is  certain  that  he  put  him- 
self forward  in  their  cause  so  as  to  be  looked  upon 
as  the  head  of  their  party  in  that  country  ;  and 
Williams,  who  was  then  bishop  of  Lincoln,  and 
whom  he  often  troubled  on  such  occasions,  says 
that  he  was  a  common  spokesman  for  sectaries, 
and  maintained  their  part  with  stubbornness. 
Whatever  part  indeed  Cromwell  took  up  would  be 
well  maintained,  and  the  time  was  now  approach- 
ing when  he  was  to  take  a  conspicuous  one. 

A  rebellion  broke  out  in  Scotland,  where  no 
disaffection  had  been  suspected.  By  prudent 
measures  it  might  easily  have  been  averted,  by 
vigorous  ones  it  might  easily  have  been  crushed ; 
and  both  were  wanting.  The  king  raised  an  army 
which,  by  the  management  of  designing  persons, 
and  the  mismanagement  of  others,  was  rendered 
useless.  A  treaty  was  made  by  which  nothing 
was  concluded  ;  all  the  savings  of  the  preceding 
years  were  wasted  in  this  disgraceful  expedition ; 
and  Charles,  who  had  so  long  governed  without  a 
parliament,  was  now  compelled  to  call  one,  for 
the  purpose  of  obtaining  supplies.  The  majority  . 
of  that  parliament  consisted  of  men  who  knew 
their  duty  to  their  king  and  country,  and,  in  assert- 
ing the  constitutional  liberties  of  the  people,  would 
have  sacredly  preserved  the  rights  of  the  crown, 
wherein  those  liberties  have  their  surest  safeguard. 


36  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

There  were  however  some  persons,  of  great  abili- 
ty, who  were  determined  upon  effecting  some 
change  both  in  the  ecclesiastic  and  civil  institu- 
tions of  the  land,  not  having  acknowledged  to 
others,  nor  perhaps  to  themselves,  how  far  they 
were  willing  that  that  change  should  extend.  The 
state  of  their  mind  was  well  expressed  by  Crom- 
well, who,  when  Sir  Thomas  Chichley  and  Sir 
Philip  Warwick  asked  him  with  what  concessions 
he  would  be  satisfied,  honestly  replied,  "  I  can 
tell  you,  sirs,  what  I  would  not  have,  though  I 
can  not  tell  what  I  would."  This  parliament  was 
hastily  dissolved  by  the  counsel  of  Sir  Henry  Vane 
the  elder,  and  Herbert  the  solicitor-general :  the 
latter  acted  with  no  worse  motives  than  peevish- 
ness and  mortified  pride  ;  the  former  appears  to 
have  intended  the  mischief  which  ensued.  The 
discontented  party  did  not  conceal  their  joy  at  an 
event  which  made  all  good  men  mournful.  Crom- 
well's cousin  St.  John,  whose  dark  and  treacher- 
ous spirit  at  all  other  times  clouded  his  counte- 
nance, met  Mr.  Hyde  with  a  smiling  and  cheerful 
aspect,  and  seeing  him  melancholy,  "  as  in  truth 
he  was  from  his  heart,"  asked  what  troubled  him. 
The  same,  he  replied,  which  troubled  most  good 
men,  that  in  such  a  time  of  confusion,  so  wise  a 
parliament,  which  alone  could  have  found  remedy 
for  it,  was  so  unseasonably  dismissed.  But  St. 
John  warmly  made  answer,  that  all  was  well :  and 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  37 

that  it  must  be  worse  before  it  was  better :  and 
that  this  parliament  could  never  have  done  what 
was  necessary  to  be  done — "  as  indeed,"  says 
Hyde,  "  it  would  not  what  he  and  his  friends  thought 
necessary."  Cromwell  was  one  of  those  friends  ; 
he  had  been  returned  to  this  parliament*  for  the 
town  of  Cambridge,  and  was  returned  for  the  same 
seat  to  the  next — the  famous  and  infamous  Long 
Parliament,  which  Charles  found  it  necessary  to 
call  in  six  months  after  the  dissolution. 

Cromwell's  appearance  in  this  assembly  is 
happily  described  by  Sir  Philip  Warwick.  "  The 
first  time,"  he  says,  "  that  ever  I  took  notice  of 
him,  was  in  the  very  beginning  of  the  parliament 
held  in  November,  1640,*  when  I  vainly  thought 
myself  a  courtly  young  gentleman,  for  we  courtiers 
valued  ourselves  much  upon  our  good  clothes.  I 
came  one  morning  into  the  house  well  clad,  and 
perceived  a  gentleman  speaking,  whom  I  knew 
not,  very  ordinarily  apparelled,  for  it  was  a  plain 
cloth  suit,  which  seemed  to  have  been  made  by 
an  ill  country  tailor.  His  linen  was  plain,  and  not 
very  clean  ;  and  I  remember  a  speck  or  two  of 
blood  upon  his  little  band,  which  was  not  much 
larger  than  his  collar :  his  hat  was  without  a  hat- 
band ;  his  stature  was  of  a  good  size ;  his  sword 

[*  He  sat  in  this  parliament — commonly  known  as  the 
Long  Parliament — for  the  town  of  Cambridge.  His  fellow- 
member  was  John  Lawry,  Esq.] 

4  V 


38  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

Stuck  close  to  his  side,  his  countenance  swollen  and 
reddish,  his  voice  sharp  and  untunable,  and  his 
eloquence  full  of  fervor."*  But  it  was  more  by 
heat  and  earnestness  than  by  eloquence  that 
Cromwell  made  himself  noticed  at  this  time.  One 
of  the  first  occasions  upon  which  he  spoke  in  this 
parliament  was  in  a  committee,  in  opposition  to 
Lord  Kimbolton,  upon  the  earl  of  Manchester's 
.  enclosure  business.  He  behaved  intemperately, 
"  ordering  the  witnesses  and  petitioners  in  the 
method  of  proceeding,  and  seconding,  and  enlar- 
ging upon  what  they  said  with  great  passion."t 
When  the  chairman  endeavored  to  preserve  order, 
by  speaking  with  authority,  Cromwell  accused  him 
of  being  partial  and  discountenancing  the  wit- 
nesses ;  and  when,  says  Lord  Clarendon,  who  was 
himself  the  chairman.  Lord  Kimbolton, "  upon  any 
mention  of  matter  of  fact,  or  the  proceeding  before 
and  at  the  enclosure,  desired  to  be  heard,*and  with 
great  modesty  related  what  had  been  done,  or  ex- 
plained what  had  been  said,  Mr.  Cromwell  did 
answer  and  reply  upon  him  with  so  much  indecen- 
cy and  rudeness,  and  in  language  so  contrary  and 
offensive,  that  every  man  would  have  thought, 
that  as  their  natures  and  their  manners  were  as 
opposite  as  it  is  possible,  so  their  interest  could 
never  have  been  the  same.     In  the  end  his  whole 

[•  Sir  Philip  Warwick's  Memoirs,  ed.  1702,  p.  247.] 
[tLord  Clarendon's  Life  of  himself,  ed.  1827,  vol.,  1.  p.  89.] 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  39 

carriage  was  so  tempestuous,  and  his  behavior  so 
insolent,  that  the  chairman  found  himself  obliged 
to  reprehend  him,  and  to  tell  him  if  he  proceeded 
in  the  same  manner,  he  would  presently  adjourn 
the  committee,  and  the  next  morning  complain  to 
the  house  of  him."* 

Cromwell's  name  does  not  appear  in  the  pro- 
ceedings against  Lord  Strafford.  That  he  bore 
his  part,  however,  may  be  presumed  not  only  from 
the  whole  tenor  of  his  after-conduct,  but  because 
his  cousin  St.  John  was  one  of  the  foremost  agents 
in  that  most  iniquitous  transaction,  one  of  the 
deadly  sins  of  the  Long  Parliament.  When  the 
question  of  the  Remonstrance,  much  against  the 
will  of  the  violent  party,  was  deferred  till  the  mor- 
row, that  there  might  be  lime  for  debating  it,  Crom- 
well asked  Lord  Falkland  why  he  would  have  it 
put  off,  for  that  day  would  quickly  have  determined 
it.  Lord  Falkland  answered  there  would  not 
have  been  time  enough,  for  sure  it  would  take  some 
debate  ;  and  Cromwell  replied,  a  very  sorry  one  ; 
for  he,  and  those  with  whom  he  acted,  supposed 
there  would  be  little  opposition.  It  was  so  well 
opposed  that  the  debate  continued  from  nine  in  the 
morning  till  midnight ;  a  thing  at  that  time  wholly 
unprecedented.     As  they  went  out  of  the  house, 

[*  Which  he  never  forgave  ;  and  took  all  occasions  after- 
ward to  pursue  him  with  the  utmost  malice  and  revenge  to 
his  death.— Clar.  Life,  ed.  1827,  vol.  i.,  p.  90.] 


40  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

Lord  Falkland  asked  him,  whether  there  had  been 
adebate.  To  which  Cromwell  replied,  he  would 
take  his  word  another  time,  and  whispered  him  in 
the  ear,  that  if  the  Remonstrance  had  been  reject- 
ed, he  would  have  sold  all  he  had  the  next  morn- 
ing, and  never  have  seen  England  more ;  and  he 
knew  there  were  many  other  honest  men  of  the 
same  resolution.  So  near,  says  Clarendon,  was 
the  poor  kingdom  at  that  time  to  its  deliverance.* 
That  memorable  Remonstrance,  which  must  have 
been  intended  by  those  who  framed  it  to  prepare 
the  way  for  the  evils  which  ensued,  was  carried 
(14th  Nov.,  1641)  by  a  majority  of  nine,  when  not 
half  the  members  of  the  house  were  present :  the 
promoters  of  the  measures  were  so  active,  that  not 
a  man  of  their  party  was  wanting,  and  at  the  last 
they  carried  it  by  the  hour  of  the  night,  which 
drove  away  more  old  and  infirm  opposers  than 
would  have  sufficed  to  turn  the  scale.  Whitelock 
says, "  the  sitting  up  all  night  caused  many  through 
weakness  or  weariness  to  leave  the  house,  and 

[»  Clar.  Hist.,  ed.  1826,  vol.  ii.,  p.  44.  Lord  Say  and  Lord 
Brooke  were  the  promoters  of  this  intended  emigration,  and, 
as  is  well  known,  Hampden  and  his  cousin  Cromwell,  and 
Haselrigge,  had  actually  embarked  for  the  new  colony  of 
Saybrooke,  when  an  order  of  council,  restraining  all  masters 
and  owners  of  ships  from  setting  forth  any  vessel  without 
special  license  was  enforced  against  them.  Nescia  mens 
hominum  fati  sortisque  faturcs. — Southey,  Q^ar.  Rev.y  No. 
xciv.,  p.  478.] 


LIFE    OF    CROMWE^U  J^  ^     y     ,;4£  SIT 

Sir  B.  R.  (Sir  Benjamin  Rudyard)KW d^rtlpare  it, >j\p 
to  the  verdict  of  a  starved  jury."*  What  Claren-  J..-— ^ ' 
don  observes  upon  this  occasion  is  worthy  of 
especial  notice.  "  I  know  not  how  those  men 
have  already  answered  it  to  their  own  consciences ; 
or  how  they  will  answer  it  to  Him  who  can  discern 
their  consciences  ;  who  having  assumed  their 
country's  trust,  and,  it  may  be,  with  great  earnest- 
ness labored  to  procure  that  trust,  by  their  supine 
laziness,  negligence,  and  absence,  were  the  first 
inlets  to  those  inundations ;  and  so  contributed  to 
those  licenses  which  have  overwhelmed  us.  For 
by  this  means  a  handful  of  men,  much  inferior  in 
the  beginning,  in  number  and  interest,  came  to  give 
laws  to  the  major  part :  and,  to  show  that  three 
diligent  persons  are  really  a  greater  and  more 
significant  number  than  ten  unconcerned,  they,  by 
plurality  of  voices  in  the  end,  converted  or  reduced 
the  whole  body  to  their  opinions.  It  is  true,  men 
of  activity  and  faction,  in  any  design,  have  many 
advantages,  that  a  composed  and  settled  council, 
though  industrious  enough,  usually  have  not  ;  and 
some  that  gallant  men  can  not  give  themselves 
leave  to  entertain  :  for  besides  their  thorough  con- 
sidering and  forming  their  counsels  before  they 
execute  them,  they  contract  a  habit  of  ill-nature 
and  disingenuity  necessary  to  their  affairs,  and  the 
temper  of  those  upon  whom  they  are  to  work,  that 
[*  Whitelocl<,  p.  51,  ed.  1732.] 
4* 


42  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

liberal-minded  men  would  not  persuade  themselves 
to  entertain,  even  for  the  prevention  of  all  the  mis- 
chief the  others  intend.  And  whosoever  observes 
the  ill  arts  by  which  these  men  use  to  prevail  upon 
the  people  in  general ;  their  absurd,  ridiculous 
lying,  to  win  the  affections,  and  corrupt  the  under- 
standings of  the  weak  ;  and  the  bold  scandals  to 
confirm  the  wilful ;  the  boundless  promises  they 
presented  to  the  ambitious  ;  and  their  gross,  abject 
flatteries  and  applications  to  the  vulgar-spirited, 
would  hardly  give  himself  leave  to  use  those 
weapons  for  the  preservation  of  the  three  king- 
doms."* 

By  such  means  a  civil  war  was  brought  on  ;  by 
such  weapons  the  civil  and  religious  establish- 
ments of  the  kingdom  were  for  a  season  overthrown. 
The  wisest  of  men  has  said,  "  the  thing  which 
hath  been,  it  is  that  which  shall  be  :"  and  the  same 
means  will  produce  a  recurrence  of  the  same  evils 
unless  right-minded  men  learn  wisdom  from  the 
past.  There  is  no  historian,  ancient  or  modem, 
with  whose  writings  it  so  much  behooves  an 
Englishman  to  be  thoroughly  conversant,  as  Lord 
Clarendon. 

One  day  when  Cromwell  had  spoken  warmly 

in  the  house.  Lord  Digby  asked  Hampden  who  he 

was  ;  and  Hampden  is  said  to  have  replied,  "  That 

sloven  whom  you  see  before  you,  hath  no  orna- 

[*  Clar.  Hist.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  57,  ed.  1826.] 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  43 

merit  in  his  speech  ;  that  sloven,  I  say,  if  we 
should  ever  come  to  a  breach  with  the  king  (which 
God  forbid  !)  in  such  a  case,  I  say,  that  sloven  will 
be  the  greatest  man  in  England."  Baxter  has  said 
of  Hampden,  that  he  was  a  man  whom  "  friends 
and  enemies  acknowledged  to  be  the  most  eminent 
for  prudence,  piety,  and  peaceable  councils."  That 
he  was  a  man  of  consummate  abilities  is  certain  ; 
that  he  was  eminently  pious  may  be  believed,  the 
darkest  political  intrigues  being  perfectly  compati- 
ble with  the  eminent  piety  of  that  age  ;  but  no 
man  even  in  that  age  had  less  pretension  to  be 
praised  for  his  peaceable  councils.  Had  Hamp- 
den died  soon  after  the  meeting  of  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment, when  he  possessed  more  power  to  do  good 
or  hurt  than  any  person  of  his  rank  had  ever  pos- 
sessed before  him,  he  would  have  left  a  character 
unimpeached  and  unimpeachable,  and  have  deser- 
vedly held  in  the  hearts  of  all  good  and  wise  men 
that  place  which  he  holds  now  with  those  only 
who  know  him  by  name  alone,  or  who  avow  their 
attachment  to  the  cause  for  which  he  bled  in  the 
field,  without  being  more  explicit  than  is  convenient 
concerning  the  nature  of  that  cause.  His  noble 
stand  against  an  illegal  exertion  of  the  prerogative 
would  have  entitled  him  to  the  everlasting  gratitude 
of  his  country  ;  and  if  he  could  have  been  contented 
with  defining  that  prerogative,  limiting  it  within 
just  bounds,  redressing  the   existing  grievances, 


44  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

and  giving  the  constitution'  that  character  which 
it  obtained  after  the  Revolution,  he  would  have 
left  a  memorable  name.  And  this  was  in  his 
power. 

What  his  views  were  can  only  be  inferred  from 
the  course  of  his  conduct ;  for  he  was  cut  off*  be- 
fore the  time  arrived  for  openly  declaring  them. 
The  probable  inference  is,  that  like  Ireton,  Alger- 
non Sidney,  and  Ludlow,  he  was  a  stern  republi- 
can. Having  read  of  no  constitution  so  happily 
balanced  as  that  which  this  country  has  enjoyed 
since  the  Revolution,  and  seeing  nothing  like  it  in 
our  previous  history,  he  may  have  believed  such 
a  balance  of  power  to  be  unattainable,  and  there- 
fore have  resolved  upon  endeavoring  to  introduce 
a  simpler  and  severer  form.  On  the  supposition 
that  the  alternative  was  an  absolute  monarchy 
(such  as,  till  his  time,  the  sovereign  of  this  king- 
dom had  claimed,  and  the  parliaments  had  ac- 
knowledged) or  a  commonwealth,  he  may  have 
properly  and  uprightly  preferred  that  polity  under 
which  the  most  security  had  been  enjoyed,  the 
greatest  talents  had  been  called  forth,  and  the  most 
splendid  exploits  had  been  achieved.  But  if,  up- 
on this  fair  ground,  they  who  reasoned  thus  may 
be  justified  in  wishing  for  the  end  at  which  they 
aimed,  nothing  can  justify  the  means  by  which  it 

[♦He  was  mortally  wounded  in  a  skirmish  on  Chalgrove 
Field,  18th  June,  1643.] 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  45 

was  pursued  ;  and  in  those  means  no  man  was 
more  deeply  implicated  than  Hampden.  The 
catholics  never  more  boldly  avowed  the  principle, 
that  any  means  are  lawful  for  compassing  a  neces- 
sary end,  than  the  puritans  acted  upon  it :  even 
good  men  of  feeble  understandings  or  weak  char- 
acters, were  too  easily  inveigled  into  that  conclu- 
sion ;  whereas,  as  their  great  contemporary  his- 
torian has  justly  observed,  "  the  true  logic  is,  that 
the  thing  desired  is  not  necessary,  if  the  ways  are 
unlawful  which  are  proposed  to  bring  it  to  pass." 
One  set  of  men  were  bent  upon  pulling  down 
episcopacy,  though  it  should  occasion  as  bloody  a 
war  as  any  with  which  England  had  ever  been  af- 
flicted. There  were  others  who  knew  these  men 
to  be  knaves,  but  were  willing  to  act  in  concert 
with  them,  for  the  purpose  of  destroying  the  mon- 
archy, meaning,  when  that  object  should  have  been 
effected,  to  deal  with  them  as  they  had  dealt  with 
others.  From  the  hour  of  Strafford's  arrest  they 
felt  their  strength,  and  saw  that,  by  the  means 
which  they  were  prepared  to  use,  success  was 
certain.  His  arrest  had  been  carried  with  an 
overwhelming  power,  because  the  great  majority 
of  members  dreaded  the  influence  of  a  minister 
so  resolute,  so  able,  and  so  arbitrary  ;  and  there- 
fore with  the  best  intentions  voted  for  it  by  ac- 
clamation. But  when  that  illustrious  victim  was 
to  be  destroyed  by  measures  more  flagrantly  ille- 


46  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

gal,  and  more  tyrannical,  than  the  worst  actions 
of  which  he  stood  accused,  they  who  had  taken 
upon  themselves  to  raise  and  to  direct  the  storm 
well  knew  that  the  co-operation  of  no  upright  man 
coidd  be  expected.  But  they  knew  also  where  to 
look  for  other  allies,  and  how  to  force  most  even 
of  those  who  abhorred  their  purpose,  to  act  in  sub- 
servience to  it. 

''  Craft,  go  thou  forth  ! 
Fear,  make  it  safe  for  no  man  to  be  just ! 
0        Wrong,  be  thou  clothed  in  power's  comeliness  ! 

Keep  down  the  best,  and  let  the  worst  have  power  !" 

They  proceeded  upon  a  deliberate  system  of  de- 
ceit and  intimidation.  Free  license  was  given  to 
a  libellous  press  ;  the  pulpits  were  manned  with 
seditious  preachers  :  they  got  the  management  of 
the  city  into  their  hands,  by  ousting  from  the  com- 
mon council  the  grave  and  substantial  citizens,  of 
whom  till  then  it  had  been  composed,  and  filling 
their  places  with  men  for  whom  factious  activity 
was  deemed  sufficient  qualification  ;  and  by  choos- 
ing a  demagogue  lord-mayor,  who  was  ready  for 
any  act  of  rebellion  and  treason.  How  easily  the 
populace  were  to  be  duped  they  well  understood, 
and  how  justly  characterized  by  a  dramatist  of  their 
own  age, — 

'-  Good  silly  people  ;  souls  that  will 
Be  cheated  without  trouble.    One  eye  is 
Put  out  with  zeal,  the  other  with  ignorance  ; 
And  yet  they  think  they're  eagles  !" 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  47 

They  understood  also  how  to  act  upon  the  mor- 
al weakness  of  those  who  were  not  likely  to  be 
deceived.  They  called  the  physical  force  of  the 
city  to  their  aid  ;  and  under  fear  of  the  mob,  sen- 
ators shrunk  from  their  duty,  when  they  ought  rath- 
er to  have  laid  down  their  lives  in  discharging  it. 
The  bishops  were  wanting  to  themselves  and  their 
order  and  their  king,  when,  under  the  influence  of 
fear,  they  abandoned  their  right  of  voting  upon  the 
attainder  of  Strafford  :  and  the  lords,  when  a  mob 
was  at  the  door,  and  Mr.  Mollis  (who  afterward 
sat  in  judgment  upon  some  of  his  colleagues)  de- 
sired, in  compliance  with  the  demand  of  that  mob, 
to  know  the  names  of  those  who  were  opposed  to 
the  wishes  of  the  commons,  passed,  under  that 
intimidation,  a  bill  which  they  hgid  twice  before  re- 
jected. The  moderate  part  of  the  members  in 
that  assembly  might  have  outvoted  the  promoters 
of  rebellion,  four  to  one  ;  but,  in  fear  of  their  lives, 
they  either  left  the  house  or  acquiesced  in  motions 
which  they  abhorred.  The  condition  of  the  house 
of  commons  was  worse  ;  because  there  the  men 
of  worst  intentions,  were  also  the  men  of  greatest 
ability,  "  and  the  number  of  the  weak  and  wilful," 
says  Clarendon,  "  who  naturally  were  to  be  guid- 
ed by  them,  always  made  up  a  major  part :  so  that 
from  the  beginning  they  were  always  able  to  carry 
whatsoever  they  set  their  hearts  visibly  upon  ;  at 
least  to  discredit  or  disgrace  any  particular  man, 


48  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

against  whom  they  thought  necessary  to  proceed, 
albeit  of  the  most  unblemished  reputation,  and  up- 
on the  most  frivolous  suggestions."  They  waged 
war  in  parliament,  as  Cromwell  did  afterward  in 
Ireland,  upon  the  principle  of  destroying  all  who 
opposed  them,  and  the  success  was  the  same.  At 
the  most  important  debates  there  was  seldom  a 
fifth  part  of  the  members  present,  and  often  not 
more  than  twelve  or  thirteen  in  the  house  of 
lords. 

It  is  especially  worthy  of  notice  that  the  very 
faults  for  which  the  king's  government  was  most 
severely  reproached,  were  committed  by  the  par- 
liament in  a  far  greater  degree,  and  with  every 
possible  aggravation.  One  of  the  accusations 
against  Charles  was  that  he  suffered  himself  to  be 
guided  by  clerical  counsellors  ;  and  the  argument 
upon  which  they  chiefly  insisted  in  support  of  the 
bill  for  taking  away  the  bishops'  votes  in  parlia- 
ment was  that  "  their  intermeddling  with  temporal 
affairs  was  inconsistent  with,  and  destructive  to, 
the  exercise  of  their  spiritual  function  ;"  "  while 
their  reformation,"  it  has  been  truly  observed, 
"  both  in  Scotland  and  this  kingdom,  was  driven 
on  by  no  men  so  much  as  those  of  their  clergy,  who 
were  their  instruments  ;  as  without  doubt  the  arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  had  never  so  great  an  in- 
fluence upon  the  councils  at  court  as  Dr.  Burgess 
and  Mr.  Marshal  had  upon  the  houses  :  neither 


j  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  49 

did  all  the  bishops  of  Scotland  together  meddle  so 
much  in  temporal  affairs  as  Mr.  Henderson  had 
done."  The  breaches  of  privilege  which  Charles 
had  committed  were  represented  by  them  as 
destructive  to  the  freedom  of  parliament ;  and  yet 
their  conduct,  both  to  the  king  and  to  the  house  of 
peers,  was  an  absolute  rooting  up  of  all  privileges. 
One  of  the  most  unpopular  acts  of  the  king  had 
been  the  levying  of  ship-money  without  the  con- 
sent of  the  parliament ;  an  impost  then  only  of 
doubtful  legality,  yet  equally  levied,  excellently 
applied,  and  so  light  in  itself  that  the  payment 
which  Hampden  honorably  disputed  was  only 
twenty  shillings  upon  an  estate  of  500/.  a  year. 
The  parliament  did  not  scruple,  without  consent 
of  the  king,  to  demand  the  twentieth  part  of  every 
man's  property  in  London,  or  so  much  as  their 
seditious  mayor  and  three  other  persons  as  sedi- 
tious as  himself  might  please  to  call  a  twentieth,  to 
be  levied  by  distress  if  the  parties  refused  pay- 
ment ;  and  if  the  distress  did  not  cover  the  assess- 
ment, then  the  defaulter  was  to  be  imprisoned 
where  and  as  long  as  a  committee  of  the  house  of 
commons  should  think  proper,  and  his  family  was 
no  longer  to  remain  in  London,  or  the  suburbs,  or 
the  abjoining  counties.  With  an  impudence  of 
slander  which  would  be  incredible,  if  anything 
were  too  bad  to  be  believed  of  thoroughly  factious 
men  which  will  serve  their  purposes,  they  accused 
5 


50  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

the  king  of  exciting  the  massacre  in  Ireland,  and 
fomenting  the  rebellion  there  ;  and  they  themselves 
employed  the  money  and  the  means  which  were 
prepared  for  quelling  that  rebellion,  in  carrying  on 
a  war  against  the  king  at  home. 

The  king  more  than  once  in  his  declarations 
reminded  them  of  a  speech  of  Pym's,  which  they 
had  heard  deservedly  applauded  when  it  was  di- 
rected against  his  measures  ;  but  which  now  bore 
against  their  own  with  greater  force.  *'  The  law," 
said  that  powerful  speaker,  "  is  that  which  puts  a 
difference  between  good  and  evil,  just  and  unjust ; 
if  you  take  away  the  law,  all  things  will  be  in  a 
confusion  ;  every  man  will  become  a  law  unto 
himself,  which,  in  the  depraved  condition  of  human 
nature,  must  needs  produce  many  great  enormities. 
Lust  will  become  a  law,  and  envy  will  become  a  law, 
covetousness  and  ambition  will  become  laws,  and 
what  dictates,  what  decisions  such  laws  will  pro- 
duce, may  easily  be  discerned  : — it  may  indeed  by 
sad  instances  over  the  whole  kingdom."  And  then 
the  king  set  before  them  a  picture  of  their  own 
conduct,  so  ably  and  so  truly  drawn,  that,  if  men 
were  governed  by  their  reason  and  not  by  their 
passions,  that  excellent  paper  alone  would  have 
given  the  victory  over  all  his  enemies.  In  another 
declaration  the  king  said  "  whosoever  harbored 
the  least  thought  in  his  breast  of  ruining  or  viola- 
ting the  public  liberty,  or  religion  of  the  kingdom. 


LIFE    OF    CROMWEIA.W   AM  J.    V    J^fJ,  SIT 

let  him  be  accursed ;  and  he  shomd^e  no  coim-  ,$^' 

sellor  of  his  that  would  not  say  Amen."  That 
which  he  charged  the  leaders  of  parliament  with, 
"  was  invading  the  public  liberty ;  and  his  pre- 
sumption might  be  very  strong  and  vehement,  that 
though  they  had  no  mind  to  be  slaves,  they  were 
not  unwilling  to  be  tyrants.  What  is  tyranny," 
said  he,  "  but  to  admit  no  rules  to  govern  by,  but 
their  own  wills  ?  And  they  knew  the  misery  of 
Athens  was  at  the  highest,  when  it  suffered  under 
the  thirty  tyrants."  Hobbes,  whose  resolute  way 
of  thinking  was  more  in  accord  with  the  temper 
of  CromwelFs  government  than  of  the  king's, 
speaks  with  contempt  of  these  declarations  ;  but 
if  Charles  had  been  served,  or  known  how  to  serve 
himself,  as  ably  with  the  sword  as  with  the  pen, 
the  struggle  would  soon  have  been  decided  in  his 
favor.  What  has  been  said  of  the  son,*  that  he 
never  said  a  foolish  thing  and  never  did  a  wise 
one,  might  more  truly  be  said  of  the  father  :  in 
him,  however,  it  proceeded  from  what,  in  other 
times  and  other  circumstances,  would  have  been 
a  virtue.  In  speaking,  he  expressed  his  own 
judgment ;  in  acting,  he  yielded  to  that  of  others, 
and  was  ruined  by  want  of  confidence  in  himself, 
and  by  the  fear  of  doing  wrong. 

Clarendon,  who  writes  always  with  the  feelings 
of  a  Christian,  as  well  as  the  wisdom  of  a  states- 
[*  By  Wilmot  Lord  Rochester.] 


52  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

man,  has  some  remarks  upon  the  conduct  of  the 
parliament,  drawn  up  with  his  characteristic  can- 
dor. "  A  man  shall  not  unprofitably  spend  his 
contemplation,  that,  upon  this  occasion,  considers 
the  method  of  God's  justice  (a  method  terribly  re- 
markable in  many  passages,  and  upon  many  per- 
sons, which  we  shall  be  compelled  to  remember 
in  this  discourse),  that  the  same  principles,  and 
the  same  application  of  those  principles,  should  be 
used  to  the  wresting  all  sovereign  power  from  the 
crown,  which  the  crown  had  a  little  before  made  use 
of  for  the  extending  its  authority  and  power  beyond 
its  bounds,  to  the  prejudice  of  the  just  rights  of  the 
subject.  A  supposed  necessity  was  then  thought 
ground  enough  to  create  a  power,  and  a  bare  aver- 
ment of  that  necessity,  to  beget  a  practice  to  im- 
pose what  tax  they  thought  convenient  upon  the 
subject,  by  writs  of  ship-money  never  before 
known  ;  and  a  supposed  necessity  now,  and  a  bare 
averment  of  that  necessity,  is  as  confidently,  and 
more  fatally,  concluded  a  good  ground,  to  exclude 
the  crown  from  the  use  of  any  power,  by  an  ordi- 
nance never  before  heard  of ;  and  the  same  maxim 
of  salus  populi  suprema  lex,  which  had  been  used 
to  the  infringing  the  liberty  of  the  one,  made  use 
of  for  the  destroying  the  rights  of  the  other."  Re- 
flections of  this  kind  must  often  have  arisen  in  the 
mind  of  Charles  himself.  When,  in  his  father's 
lifetime,  taking  part  in  Buckingham's  animosities, 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  53 

he  promoted  the  impeachment  of  the  earls  of  Bris- 
tol and  Middlesex,  James  said  to  him,  with  a  fore- 
sight which  has  almost  a  prophetic  character,  that 
he  would  live  to  have  his  belly  full  of  parliament- 
ary impreachments.*  But  he  was  always  more 
sinned  against  than  sinning :  the  most  unjustifi- 
able of  his  measures  proceeded  from  a  mistaken 
judgment,  not  an  evil  intention  ;  the  most  unpopular 
of  them,  and  that  which  gave  the  greatest  advan- 
tage to  his  enemies  (the  accusation  of  the  six 
members),  plainly  arose  from  a  perfect  confidence 
in  his  own  rectitude,  and  the  goodness  of  his 
cause. 

The  melancholy  warning  which  James  gave  his 
son  proved  the  sagacity  of  that  king,  whose  talents 
it  has  been  too  much  the  custom  to  decry.  There 
is  an  expression  of  Laud's  which  bears  with  it  even 
more  of  a  prophetic  appearance,  from  the  accident- 
al turn  of  the  sentence.  "  At  this  time,  the  par- 
liament tendered  two,  and  but  two  bills  to  the  king 
to  sign :  this  to  cut  off  Strafford's  head  was  one ; 
and  the  other  was  that  this  parliament  should 
neither  be  dissolved  nor  adjourned,  but  by  the  con- 
sent of  both  houses  :  in  which,  what  he  cut  off  from 
himself,  time  tvill  better  show  than  I  can.  God 
bless  the  king  and  his  royal  issue !"  Charles's 
feelings  upon  that  fatal  bill  which  perpetuated  the 
parliament,  and  thereby  in  fact  transferred  the 
[*  Clar.  Hist.,  ed.  1826,  vol.  i.,  p.  41.] 
5* 


54  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

sovereignty  to  it,  are  well  stated  in  the  Eikcov  BaaiXiKn,* 
"  By  this  act  of  the  highest  confidence,  I  hoped 
for  ever  to  shut  out  and  lock  the  door  upon  all 
present  jealousies  and  future  mistakes  :  I  confess 
I  did  not  thereby  intend  to  shut  myself  out  of  doors, 
as  some  men  have  now  requited  me.  A  continual 
parliament,  I  thought,  would  but  keep  the  com- 
monweal in  tune,  by  preserving  laws  in  their  due 
execution  and  vigor,  within  my  interest  lies  more 
than  any  man's,  since  by  those  laws  my  rights 
as  a  king  would  be  preserved,  no  less  than  my 
subjects  ;  which  is  all  I  desired.  More  than  the 
law  gives  me  I  would  not  have,  and  less  the 
meanest  subject  should  not.     1  can  not  say  prop- 

♦  The  authenticity  of  this  Book  has  been  attacked  and  de- 
fended with  such  cogent  arguments  and  strong  assertions, 
that  as  far  as  relates  to  external  proofs,  perhaps  there  is 
scarcely  any  other  question  in  bibliography  so  doubtful.  The 
internal  evidence  is  wholly  in  its  favor.  Had  it  been  the  work 
of  Gauden,  or  of  any  person  writing  to  suJDport  the  royal  cause, 
a  higher  tone  concerning  episcopacy  and  prerogative  would 
have  been  taken  ;  there  would  have  been  more  effort  at  justi- 
fication ;  and  there  would  not  have  been  that  inefficient  but 
conscientious  defence  of  fatal  concessions  ;  that  penitent  con- 
fession of  sin  where  weakness  had  been  sinful;  that  piety 
without  alloy  ;  that  character  of  mild  and  even  magnanimity  j 
and  that  heavenly-mindedness,  which  render  the  Euwi/ 
BaaiXiKT]  one  of  the  most  interesting  books  in  our  language. 

[There  is  a  very  little  testimony  on  Gauden's  side  (strictly 
speaking,  perhaps,  none  at  all),  except  his  own  ....  There 
is  a  mass  of  testimony  which  shows  that  the  king  had  the 
book  continually  in  his  hand,  revised  it  much,  and  had  many 
transcripts  of  it. — Southey,  Quar.  Rev.,  No.  Ixxiii.,  p.  249.] 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  55. 

erly  that  I  repent  of  that  act,  since  I  have  no 
reflections  upon  it  as  a  sin  of  my  will,  though  an 
error  of  too  charitable  a  judgment." 

Charles  appealed  to  that  act  with  great  force  as 
a  proof  that  he  had  no  intention  of  recurring  to 
arms.  "  Sure,"  he  says,  "  it  had  argued  a  very 
short  sight  of  things,  and  extreme  fatuity  of  mind 
in  me,  so  far  to  bind  my  own  hands  at  their  re- 
quest, if  I  had  shortly  meant  to  use  a  sword  against 
them."  When  Hampden  spoke  of  the  part  which 
Cromwell  might  be  expected  to  bear,  in  case  they 
should  come  to  a  breach  with  the  king,  he  depre- 
cated such  an  event.  But  Hampden's  studies 
were  rather  how  to  direct  a  civil  war,  than  to 
avert  one.  Davila's  history  was  so  often  in  his 
hands,  that  it  was  called  Colonel  Hampden's 
prayer-book.  The  truth  is,  that  a  few  men  of 
daring  spirit,  great  ability,  and  great  popularity, 
some  calling  themselves  saints  because  they  were 
schismatics,  others  styling  themselves  philosophers 
because  they  were  unbelievers,  had  determined  to 
overthrow  the  existing  government  in  church  and 
state ;  which  they  knew  to  be  feasible,  because 
circumstances  favored  them,  and  they  scrupled  at 
nothing  to  bring  about  their  end.  Their  plan  was 
to  force  from  the  king  all  they  could,  and  when 
they  should  have  disarmed  him  of  all  power  and 
means  for  the  struggle,  then  to  provoke  him  by 
insults  and  unreasonable  demands,  till  he  should 


56  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

appeal  to  the  sword.  This  Charles  himself  saw. 
"  A  grand  maxim  with  them  was,"  he  says,  "  al- 
ways to  ask  something  which  in  reason  and  honor 
must  be  denied,  that  they  might  have  some  color 
to  refuse  all  that  was  in  other  things  granted ; 
setting  peace  at  as  high  a  rate  as  the  worst  effects 
of  war  ;  endeavoring  first  to  make  me  destroy 
myself  by  dishonorable  concessions,  that  so  they 
might  have  the  less  to  do."  "  The  English,"  says 
Hobbes,  "  would  never  have  taken  well  that  the 
parliament  should  make  war  upon  the  king  upon 
any  provocation,  unless  it  were  in  their  own  de- 
fence, in  case  the  king  should  first  make  war  upon 
them  ;  and  therefore  it  behooved  them  to  provoke 
the  king,  that  he  might  do  something  that  might 
look  like  hostility." — "  Therefore,"  he  elsewhere 
adds,  "  they  resolved  to  proceed  with  him  like  skil- 
ful hunters,  first  to  single  him  out  by  men  disposed 
in  all  parts,  to  drive  him  into  the  open  field,  and 
then  in  case  he  should  but  seem  to  turn  head,  to 
call  that  a  making  of  war  against  the  parliament." 
Never  was  poor  prince  more  miserably  unpre- 
pared for  such  a  contest  than  Charles,  when  he 
had  no  other  alternative  than  to  descend  into  the 
pit  which  his  enemies  had  dug  for  him,  or  to  raise 
his  standard.  When  that  determination  was  taken 
he  had  not  "  one  barrel  of  gunpowder,  nor  one 
musket,  nor  any  other  provision  necessary  for  an 
army  ;  and,  which  was  worse,  was  not  sure  of  any 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  57 

port,  to  which  ihey  might  be  securely  assigned  ; 
nor  had  he  money  for  the  support  of  his  own  table 
for  the  term  of  one  month."  The  single  ship  which 
reached  him  with  supplies  by  running  ashore,  brought^ 
about  200  barrels  of  powder,  2,000  or  3,000  arms, 
and  seven  or  eight  field-pieces ;  and  with  this  he  took 
the  field,  but  in  so  helpless  and  apparently  hope- 
less a  condition,  that  even  after  he  had  set  up  that 
standard,  which  was  so  ominously  blown  down  by 
a  tempest.  Clarendon  says,  it  must  solely  be  im- 
puted to  his  own  resolution,  that  he  did  not  even 
then  go  to  London  and  throw  himself  on  the  mercy 
of  the  parliament,  which  would  have  been  sur- 
rendering at  discretion  to  an  enemy  that  gave  no 
quarter.  But  he  relied  upon  the  goodness  of  his 
cause,  and  upon  the  loyalty  and  love  of  his  sub- 
jects. That  reliance  did  not  deceive  him  :  the 
gentlemen  of  England  came  forward  with  a  spirit 
which  enabled  him  to  maintain  the  contest  no  in- 
considerable time  upon  equal  terms,  and  which, 
under  the  direction  of  more  vigorous  counsels, 
might  many  times  have  given  him  complete  suc- 
cess. But  it  was  otherwise  appointed.  Whoever 
has  attentively  perused  the  history  of  those  unhap- 
py years  must  have  perceived  that  this  war,  more 
perhaps  than  any  other  of  which  the  events  have 
been  recorded,  was  determined  rather  by  accidents 
and  blunders,  than  by  foreseen  and  prepared  com- 
binations.    The  man  who  most  contributed  to  the 


58  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

king's  utter  overthrow  by  his  actions,  and  the  only 
man  who  from  the  beginning  perceived  wherein  the 
strength  of  the  king  lay,  an-d  by  what  principle  it 
might  be  opposed  with  the  surest  prospect  of  sur- 
cess,  was  Cromwell. 

During  the  proceedings  which  provoked  the  war, 
Cromwell  took  no  conspicuous  part,  but  he  wu? 
one  of  that  number  upon  whose  votes  the  leaders 
of  the  disaffected  party  could  always  rely.  He 
was  sincerely  a  puritan  in  his  religious  notions,  m 
that  respect  more  sincere  than  many  of  those  wiili 
whom  he  then  acted  :  for  political  speculations 
probably  cared  less;  but  being  a  resolute  mi 
and  one  whose  purposes  were  straight  forwai  .. 
though  he  frequently  proceeded  by  crooked  ways, 
he,  like  his  cousin  Hampden,  when  he  drew  the 
sword,  threw  away  the  scabbard.  When  the 
war  began,  he  received  a  captain's  commission, 
and  raised  a  troop  of  horse  in  his  own  country. 
Then  it  was  that  he  gave  the  first  proof  of  that 
sagacity  which  made  him  afterward  the  absolute 
master  of  three  kingdoms  :  in  what  manner  it  was 
now  exercised  may  best  be  told  in  his  own  curious 
words.  "  I  was  a  person,"  said  he,  "  that  from 
my  first  employment  was  suddenly  preferred  and 
lifted  up  from  lesser  trusts  to  greater,  from  my  fiibt 
being  a  captain  of  a  troop  of  horse  ;  and  I  did  labor 
as  well  as  I  could,  to  discharge  my  trust :  and  God 
blessed  me  as  it  pleased  him ;  and  I  did  truly  and 


t 

LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  59 

plranly ;  and  then  in  a  way  of  foolish  simplicity 
^'"'^  ':'  was  judged  by  very  great  and  wise  men,  and 
men  too)  desired  to  make  my  instruments  to 
help  me  in  this  work  ;  and  I  will  deal  plainly  with 
•you  ;  I  had  a  very  worthy  friend  then,  and  he  was 
a  vrry  noble  person,  and  I  know  his  memory  is 
very  grateful  to  all,  Mr.  John  Hampden.  At  my 
first  going  out  into  this  engagement,  I  saw  their 
men  were  beaten  at  every  hand  ;  I  did  indeed, 
and  desired  him  that  he  would  make  some  addi- 
tions to  my  Lord  Essex's  army  of  some  new  regi- 
ments ;  and  I  told  him  I  would  be  serviceable  to 
him  in  bringing  such  men  in,  as  1  thought  had  a 
spirit  that  would  do  something  in  the  work.  This 
is  very  true  that  I  tell  you,  God  knows  1  lie  not. 
*  Your  troops,'  said  I,  *  are  most  of  them  old  decayed 
servmg  men,  and  tapsters,  and  such  kind  of  fel- 
lows ;  and,'  said  I,  *  their  troops  are  gentlemen's 
soife,  younger  sons,  and  persons  of  quality  :  do  you 
think  that  the  spirits  of  such  base  and  mean  fellows 
Avill  ever  be  enabled  to  encounter  gentleman  that 
havu  honor,  and  courage,  and  resolution  in  them  V 
Truly,  I  presented  him  in  this  manner  conscien- 
tiously ]  and  truly  I  did  tell  him,  '  You  must  get  men 
of  a  spirit  i  and  take  it  not  ill  what  I  say  (I  know 
you  will  not),  of  a  spirit  that  is  likely  to  go  on  as 
far  as  gentlemen  will  go,  or  else  I  am  sure  you 
will  be  beaten  still ;'  I  told  him  so,  I  did  truly. 
He  was  a  wise  and  worthy  person,  and  he  did 


60  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

think  that  I  talked  a  good  notion,  but  an  impracti- 
cable one.  Truly  I  told  him  I  could  do  somewhat 
in  it ;  I  did  so  ;  and  truly  I  must  needs  say  that 
to  you,  I  raised  such  men  as  had  the  fear  of  God 
before  them,  and  made  some  conscience  of  what 
they  did ;  and  from  that  day  forward,  I  must  say 
to  you,  they  were  never  beaten,  and  wherever 
they  engaged  against  the  enemy,  they  beat  coti> 
tinually." 

Acting  upon  this  principle,  Cromwell  rai?^  eel  a. 
troop  of  horse  among  his  countrymen,  mostly  free- 
holders and  freeholders'  sons,  men  thoroughly  im- 
bued with  his  own  puritanical  opinions,  aud  who 
engageain  the  war  "  upon  matter  of  conscjence  :"  j 
and  thus,  says  Whitelocke,  "  being  well  armed  i 
within  by  the  satisfaction  of  their  own  conscienc 
and  without  by  good  iron  arms,  they  would  as  o 
man    stand    firmly,   and    charge    desperately.'  '' 
Cromwell  knew  his  men,  and  on  this  occasir^ 
acting  without  hypocrisy,  tried  whether  their  c-) 
sciences  were  proof ;  for  upon  raising  them  ho  told 
them  fairly  that  he  would  not  cozen  them  by  j 
plexed  expressions  in  his  commission  to  fight 
king  and  parliament :  if  the  king  chanced  to  a 
in  the  body  of  the  enemy,  he  would  as  soon  i 
charge  his  pistol  upon  him,  as  upon  any  privl 
-man  ;  and  if  their  consciences  would  not  let  th| 

[*  Whitelocke,  ed.  1732,  p.  72.] 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  61 

do  the  like,  he  advised  them  not  to  enlist  them- 
selves under  him. 

He  tried  their  courage  also,  as  well  as  their  con- 
sciences, by  leading  them  into  a  false  ambuscade  ; 
about  twenty  turned  their  backs  and  fled  ;  upon 
which  Cromwell  dismissed  them,  desiring  them 
however  to  leave  their  horses  for  those  who  would 
fight  the  Lord's  battles  in  their  stead.  And  as  the 
Lord's  battle  was  to  be  fought  with  the  arm  of 
flesh,  he  took  special  care  that  horse  and  man  in 
his  troop  should  always  be  ready  for  service  ;  and 
by  making  every  man  trust  to  himself  alone,  in  all 
needful  things,  he  enabled  them  all  to  rely  upon 
each  other,  and  act  with  confidence,  without  which 
courage  is  of  little  avail.  For  this  purpose  he 
required  them  to  keep  their  arms  clean,  bright  and 
fit  for  immediate  use  ;  to  feed  and  dress  their  own 
horses,  and  if  need  were,  to  sleep  upon  the  ground 
with  them.  The  officers  wishing  that  this  select 
loop  should  be  formed  into  what  they  called  *  a 
rathered  church,'  looked  about  for  a  fitting  pastor, 
1  nd  it  is  to  their  credit  that  they  pitched  upon  a 
raan  distinguished  for  his  blameless  manner  of  life, 
his  undoubted  piety,  and  his  extraordinary  talents. 
They  invited  Baxter  to  take  charge  of  them.  That 
remarkable  man  was  then  at  Coventry,  whither  he 
had  gone  after  the  battle  at  Edgehill  with  a  pur- 
pose to  stay  there,  as  a  safe  place,  till  one  side  or 
other  had  gotten  the  victory  and  the  war  was  end- 
6 


/ 


'  62  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

ed ;  "  for,"  says  he,  "  so  wise  in  matters  of  war 
was  I,  and  all  the  country  besides,  that  we  com- 
monly supposed  that  a  very  few  days  or  weeks,  by 
one  other  battle,  would  end  the  wars  ;  and  I  be- 
lieve that  no  small  number  of  the  parliament  men 
had  no  more  wit  than  to  think  so."  Baxter  was 
at  that  time  so  zealous  in  his  political  feelings, 
that  he  thought  it  a  sin  for  any  man  to  remain 
neuter.  But  the  invitation  to  take  charge  of  *  a 
gathered  church'  did  not  accord  with  his  opinions 
concerning  ecclesiastical  discipline.  He  therefore 
sent  them  a  denial,  reproving  their  attempt,  and 
telling  them  wherein  his  judgment  was  against 
the  lawfulness  and  convenience  of  their  way. 
"  These  very  men,"  he  says,  "  that  then  invited  me 
to  be  their  pastor,  were  the  men  that  afterward 
headed  much  of  the  army,  and  some  of  them  were 
the  forwardest  in  all  our  changes  ;  which  made  me 
wish  that  I  had  gone  among  them,  however  it  had 
been  interpreted ;  for  then  all  the  fire  was  in  one 
spark." 

Cromwell  exerted  himself  with  so  much  zeal 
and  success  in  imbodying  and  disciplining  these 
troops,  that  he  appears  to  have  been  raised  to  the 
rank  of  colonel  for  that  service  alone.  The  first  act 
which  he  performed  was  to  take  possession  of 
Cambridge,  which  Lord  Capel  would  else  have 
occupied;  and  to  secure  for  the  parliament  the 
college  plate,  which  otherwise  would  have  been 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  63 

sent  to  the  king.  At  this  time  he  paid  his  uncle 
and  godfather,  Sir  Oliver,  a  visit  for  the  purpose 
of  taking  away  his  arms  and  all  his  plate:  but  be- 
having with  the  greatest  personal  respect  to  the 
head  of  his  family,  he  asked  his  blessing,  and 
would  not  keep  on  his  hat  in  his  presence.  From 
Cambridge  he  kept  down  the  loyal  party  in  the 
adjoining  counties  of  Suffolk  and  Norfolk,  dispers- 
ing a  confederacy  which  would  soon  have  become 
formidable,  and  taking  the  whole  of  the  stores 
which  they  had  provided.  This  was  a  service 
which,  in  the  language  of  the  saints,  was  said  to 
set  the  whole  country  right,  by  freeing  it  of  the 
malignants.  Stories  of  his  cruelty  were  told  at 
this  time  in  the  Mercurius  Aulicus  which  were 
abominably  false  :  men  too  easily  believe  evil  of 
their  enemies ;  and  these  calumnies  obtained  the 
readier  credit,  because  he  and  his  men  conceived 
themselves  to  be  doing  a  work  of  reformation  in 
injuring  Peterborough  cathredal,  demolishing  the 
painted  windows,  breaking  the  organ,  defacing 
tombs  and  statues,  and  destroying  the  books.  But 
in  other  places  where  the  ferocious  spirit  of  pu- 
ritanism  was  not  called  forth,  their  conduct  was 
more  orderly  than  that  of  any  other  troops  who 
were  engaged  on  the  same  side.  One  of  the  jour- 
nals of  the  day  says  of  them,  "no  man  swears  but 
he  pays  his  twelvepence ;  if  he  be  drunk,  he  is 
set  in  stocks,  or  worse  ;  if  one  calls  the  other 


64  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

round-head,  he  is  cashiered ;  insomuch  that  the 
countries  where  they  come  leap  for  joy  of  them, 
and  come  in  and  join  with  them.  How  happy 
were  it  if  all  the  forces  were  thus  disciplined !" 

The  relief  of  Gainsborough  (23d  July,  1643) 
was  the  first  conspicuous  action  in  which  Crom- 
well was  engaged  :  "  this,"  Whitelock  says,  "  was 
the  beginning  of  his  great  fortunes,  and  now  he 
began  to  appear  to  the  world."*  It  was  in  this 
action  that  Charles  Cavendish  fell, 

''  The  young,  the  lovely,  and  the  brave  J 
Strew  bays  and  flowers  on  his  honored  grave  !" 

one  of  the  many  noble  spirits  who  were  cut  oflf 
in  that  mournful  war.f  Cromwell  says  they  had 
the  execution  of  the  enemy  two  or  three  miles, 
and  that  some  of  his  soldiers  kiHed  two  or  three 
men  apiece.  He  had  a  narrow  escape  the  same 
year  under  the  earl  of  Manchester,  when  part  of 
Newcastle's  army  were  defeated  near  Horncastle.J 
His  horse  was  killed  under  him,  and  as  he  rose 
he  was  again  knocked  down,  by  the  cavalier  who 
charged  him,  and  who  is  supposed  to  have  been 
Sir  Ingram  Hopton.  He  was  however  remounted, 
and  found  himself,  with  that  singular  good  fortune 

[*  Whitelock,  ed.  1732,  p.  72.  Whitelock  calls  him  Colonel 
Cromwell ;  he  served  at  this  time  under  Lord  Willoughby  of 
Parham.] 

[t  Cousin  to  the  loyal  marquis  of  Newcastle,  and  brother 
to  the  third  earl  of  Devonshire.] 

P  Ludlow's  Memoirs,  ed.  1771,  p.  30.] 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  65 

which  always  attended  him,  without  a  wound.  At 
the  close  of  the  year  he  took  Hilsdori  house  by 
assault,  and  alarmed  Oxford.*  Though  Essex 
and  Waller,  who  was  called  by  his  own  party 
William  the  Conqueror,  were  still  the  favorite 
leaders  of  the  parliamentary  forces,  Cromwell  was 
now  looked  upon  as  a  considerable  person,  and 
was  opposed  in  public  opinion  to  Prince  Rupert, 
before  they  ever  met  as  hostile  generals  in  the 
field.  When  the  prince  was  preparing  to  relieve 
York,  the  London  journals  represented  him  as 
afraid  to  try  himself  against  this  rising  commander. 
"  He  would  rather  suffer,"  they  said,  "  his  dear 
friends  in  York  to  perish  than  venture  the  loss  of 
his  honor  in  so  dangerous  a  passage.  He  loves 
not  to  meet  a  Fairfax,  nor  a  Cromwell,  nor  any  of 
those  men  that  have  so  much  religion  and  valor  in 
them."  The  battle  of  Marston  Moor  (2d  July, 
1644)  soon  followed  ;  most  rashly  and  unjustifiably 
brought  on  by  Rupert,  without  consulting  the 
marquis  of  Newcastle,  by  whom,  in  all  prudence, 
he  ought  to  have  been  directed,  and  at  a  time  when 
nothing  but  an  immediate  action  could  have  pre- 
vented the  Scotch  and  parliamentary  armies  from 
quarrelling  and  separating,  so  that  either,  or  both, 
would  have  been  exposed  to  an  utter  overthrow. 
The  Scotch,  who  were  in  the  right  wing,  were 
completely  routed  ;  they  fled  in  all  directions,  and 
[•  And  so  went  on  to  Gloucester.  Whitelock,  p.  82.] 
6* 


66  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

were  taken  or  knocked  on  the  head  by  the  peasant- 
ry :  their  general  himself  was  made  prisoner  ten 
miles  from  the  field  by  a  constable.  But  the  for- 
tune of  the  day  was  decided  by  the  English  horse 
under  Fairfax  and  Cromwell.  They  were  equal 
in  courage  to  the  king's  troops,  and  superior  in 
discipline :  and  by  their  exertions  a  victory  was 
gained,  of  which  they  were  left  to  make  full  ad- 
vantage at  leisure,  owing  to  the  egregious  mis- 
conduct of  the  prince,  and  the  resentment  of  the 
earlof  Newcastle,  which  in  that  fatal  Jiour  prevail- 
ed over  a  noble  mind,  and  made  him  forsake  the 
post  of  duty  in  disgust. 

HoUis  in  his  memoirs  has  the  folly  as  well  as 
the  baseness  to  accuse  Cromwell  of  cowardice  in 
this  action.*  Some  intention  of  detracting  from 
his  deserts  seems  to  have  been  suspected  at  the 
time.  The  "  Mercurius  Britannicus"  says, "  There 
came  out  something  in  print  which  made  a  strange 
relation  of  the  battle :  'tis  pity  the  gallant  Crom- 
well and  his  godly  soldiers  are  so  little  heard  on, 
and  they  with  God  were  so  much  seen  in  the 
battle  !  But  in  these  great  achievements  by  night, 
it  is  hard  to  say  who  did  most,  or  who  did  least. 
The  best  way  to  end  our  quarrel  of  who  did  most, 
is  to  say  God  did  all."     On  the  other  hand,  Crom- 

[*  HoUis  accuses  him  of  cowardice  not  only  at  Marston? 
Moor,  but  at  Basing-House  and  Keynton.  See  Hollis's  Life 
of  Himself^  in  vol.  i.,  of  Maseres's  tracts.] 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  67 

welPs  partisans,  to  magnify  his  reputation,  gave 
out  that  certain  troops  of  horse,  picked  men,  all 
Irish  and  all  papists,  had  been  appointed  by  Prince 
Rupert,  to  charge  in  that  part  where  he  was 
stationed.  And  reports  as  slanderous  as  those 
which  charged  him  with  want  of  courage,  were 
spread  abroad  to  give  him  the  whole  credit  of  the 
day :  it  was  said  that  he  had  stopped  the  commander- 
in-chief,  Manchester,  in  the  act  of  flight,  saying  to 
him,  "  You  are  mistaken,  my  lord :  the  enemy  is 
not  there  !"  The  earl  of  Manchester  was  as  brave 
as  Cromwell  himself;  no  man  who  engaged  in  the 
rebellion  demeaned  himself  throughout  its  course 
so  honorably  and  so  humanely  (Colonel  Hutchin- 
son, in  his  station,  perhaps  alone  excepted),  and 
no  man  repented  more  sincerely,  nor  more  frankly 
avowed  his  repentance  for  th^  part  he  had  taken, 
when  he  saw  the  extent  of  the  misery  which  he 
had  largely  contributed  to  bring  upon  his  country. 
Cromwell  was  now  becoming  an  object  of  dis- 
like or  jealousy  to  those  leaders  of  the  rebellion 
whose  reputation  waned  as  his  increased,  or  who 
had  insanely  supposed,  when  they  let  the  waters 
loose,  that  it  would  at  any  time  be  in  their  power 
to  restrain  them  again  within  their  proper  bounds. 
The  open  declaration  which  he  made  against  the 
king  at  the  commencement  of  hostilities,  they  had 
perhaps  regarded  with  complacency,  taking  credit 
to  themselves  for  comparative  moderation.     Be- 


6S  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

cause  they  could  manage  a  party,  they  fancied 
themselves  capable  of  managing  a  rebellion,  not 
remembering,  or  not  knowing,  that 

^'  When  evil  strives,  the  worst  have  greatest  names :" 
and  not  perceiving  that  when  Cromwell,  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  impudent  hypocrisy  of  the  parliament's 
language  respecting  the  king,^poke  boldly  out 
like  one  who  was  resolved  to  go  all  lengths,  by 
that  declaration  he  became  the  head  of  that  party 
which,  in  all  such  convulsions,  is  sure  to  obtain 
the  ascendency.  From  the  known  opinions  of 
Ireton,  and  the  probable  ones  of  Hampden,  the 
two  men  whom  he  seems  to  have  regarded  with 
most  deference,  it  is  most  likely  that  he  entered 
into  the  war  as  a  republican  ;  and  now  he  scrupled 
not  to  let  his  principles  be  known,  saying  he  hoped 
soon  to  see  the  time  when  there  would  not  be  a 
single  lord  in  England,  and  when  Lord  Manches- 
ter would  be  called  nothing  more  than  Mr.  Mon- 
tague. But  in  his  political  as  in  his  puritanical 
professions,  Cromwell,  who  began  in  sincerity, 
was  now  acting  a  part.  Experience  was  not  lost 
upon  so  sagacious  a  man.  The  more  he  saw  of 
others,  the  higher  he  was  led  to  rate  himself;  and 
Hobbes  seems  to  have  taken  the  just  view  of  his 
motives  when  he  says  that  his  main  policy  was 
always  to  serve  the  strongest  party  well,  and  to 
proceed  as  far  as  that  and  fortune  would  carry 
him. 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  69 

But  Cromwell,  who  seldom  mistook  the  char- 
acters of  men,  deceived  himself  when  he  supposed 
that  he  could  make  Manchester  his  instrument,  as 
he  afterward  duped  Fairfax.  For  this  must  have 
been  his  secret  object  when  discoursing  with  him 
freely  upon  the  state  of  the  kingdom,  and  proposing 
something  to  which  the  earl  replied  that  the  par- 
liament would  never  approve  it,  he  made  answer, 
"  My  lord,  if  you  will  stick  firm  to  honest  men, 
you  shall  find  yourself  in  the  head  of  an  army 
that  shall  give  the  law  to  king  and  parliament." 
This  startled  Manchester,  who  already  knew  him 
to  be  a  man  of  deep  designs  :  and  the  manner  in 
which  the  speech  was  received  made  Cromwell 
perceive  that  the  earl  must  be  set  aside,  as  a  per- 
son who  was  altogether  unfit  for  his  views.  Their 
mutual  dislike  broke  out  after  the  second  battle  of 
Newbury.*  Cromwell  would  have  attempted  to 
bring  that  doubtful  conflict  to  a  decided  issue,  by 
charging  the  king's  army  in  their  retreat ;  and  from 
the  excellent  discipline  of  his  brigade,  and  his 
skill  and  intrepidity  in  action,  it  is  probable  he 
might  have  inflicted  a  severe  blow  upon  troops 
who,  it  is  acknowledged  on  their  own  part,  were 
well  enough  pleased  to  be  rid  of  an  enemy  that 
had  handled  them  so  ill.  But  Manchester  thought 
the  hazard  too  great  in  that  season,  being  the 

[*  27th  October,  1644.  The  first  battle  was  fought  20th 
Sept.  1643.] 


70  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

winter,  and  that  the  ill  consequences  of  a  defeat 
would  be  far  greater  than  the  advantage  to  be 
gained  by  a  victory  ;  for,  he  said,  if  they  should 
'  be  routed  before  Essex's  army  were  reinforced, 
there  would  be  an  end  of  their  pretences  ;  and 
they  should  be  all  rebels  and  traitors,  and  executed 
as  such  by  law.  Cromwell  repeated  this  to  the 
house  of  commons,  and  accused  him  of  having 
betrayed  the  parliament  out  of  cowardice  :  Man- 
chester justified  himself,  and  in  return  charged 
Cromwell  with  the  advice  which  he  had  offered 
him,  to  overawe  both  king  and  parliament  by 
means  of  the  army.  This  open  rupture  occasion- 
ed much  debate  and  animosity,  and  much  alarm. 
"  What,"  it  was  said,  "  shall  we  continue  bandying 
one  against  another  1  See  what  a  wide  gap  and 
door  of  reproach  we  open  unto  the  enemy !  A 
plot  from  Oxford  could  have  done  no  more  than 
work  a  distance  between  our  best  resolved  spirits." 
The  parliament,  though  indignant  at  first  at  what 
the  earl  had  said  concerning  the  course  of  law  in 
case  of  their  overthrow,  were  on  the  other  hand 
alarmed  at  the  discovery  of  a  danger  from  their 
own  army,  which,  if  it  had  been  apprehended  by 
far-sighted  men,  had  never  before  been  declared. 
Inquiry  was  called  for,  more  on  account  of  Crom- 
well's designs  than  the  earl's  error  of  judgment ; 
and  the  independents,  as  Cromwell's  party  now 
began  to  be  called,  chose  rather  to  abandon  their 


OF    liiM, 

LirEorcROM^MIVEit^n- 

charge  against  Manchester,  thal^Sfi  |^e'"c6n's€-  • 
quences  of  further  investigation. 

Manchester,  on  his  part,  made  no  further  stir, — 
contented  with  as  much  repose  as  a  mind  not  al- 
together satisfied  with  itself  would  allow  him  to 
enjoy.  But  Essex,  the  lord-general,  who  had 
acted  less  from  mistaken  principles  than  from 
weakness  and  vanity  and  pride,  which  made  him 
the  easy  instrument  of  designing  men,  gave  on 
this  occasion  the  only  instance  of  political  foresight 
which  he  ever  displayed.  He  perceived  that 
Cromwell  was  a  dangerous  man ;  and  taking 
council  with  Mollis  and  Stapleton,  leading  men 
among  the  presbyterians,  and  with  the  Scotch 
commissioners,  resolved,  if  it  were  possible,  to 
disable  one  whose  designs  were  so  justly  to  be 
apprehended.  In  serving  with  the  Scotch,  Crom- 
well had  contracted  some  dislike  and  some  con- 
tempt for  them  ;  which  they  were  not  slow  in  per- 
ceiving, as  indeed  he  took  little  pains  to  disguise 
it ;  and  Essex  was  in  hopes  that  the  Scotch  might 
be  brought  forward  to  overthrow  a  man  whom  he 
now  considered  a  formidable  rival,  as  by  their 
means  the  plans  for  rebellion  had  first  been  ripen- 
ed, and  the  superiority  afterward  obtained  for  the 
parliamentary  forces.  A  meeting  was  held  at  his 
house  to  deliberate  upon  the  best  mode  of  pro- 
ceeding, and  Whitelock  and  Maynard  were  sent 
for  at  a  very  late  hour,  to  give  their  opinions  as 


72  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL, 

lawyers.  The  Scotch  chancellor  explained  the 
business  to  them  in  a  characteristic  speech.  He 
began  by  assuring  "  Master  Maynard  and  Master 
Whitelock"  of  the  great  opinion  which  he  and  his 
brethren  had  of  their  worth  and  abilities,  else  that 
meeting  would  not  have  been  desired.  "  You 
ken  vary  weel,"  said  he  (as  Whitelock  reports  his 
words),  "  that  Lieutenant-General  Cromwell  is  no 
friend  of  ours  ;  and  since  the  advance  of  our  army 
into  England,  he  hath  used  all  underhand  and  cun- 
ning means  to  take  off  from  our  honor  and  merit  of 
this  kingdom ;  an  evil  requital  of  all  our  hazards  and 
services.  But  so  it  is  ;  and  we  are  nevertheless 
fully  satisfied  of  the  affections  and  gratitude  of  the 
gude  people  of  this  nation  in  the  general.  It  is 
thought  requisite  for  us,  and  for  the  carrying  on 
the  cause  of  the  twa  kingdoms,  that  this  obstacle 
or  remora  may  be  removed  out  of  the  way,  whom, 
we  foresee,  will  otherwise  be  no  small  impediment 
to  us  and  the  gude  design  we  have  undertaken. 
He  not  only  is  no  friend  to  us  and  to  the  govern- 
ment of  our  church,  but  he  is  also  no  wellwisher 
to  his  excellency,  whom  you  and  we  all  have 
cause  to  love  and  honor  :  and  if  he  be  permitted 
to  go  on  his  ways,  it  may,  I  fear,  endanger  the 
whole  business  ;  therefore  we  are  to  advise  of 
some  course  to  be  taken  for  the  prevention  of  that 
mischief.  You  ken  vary  weel  the  accord  twixt 
the  twa  kingdoms,  and  the  union  by  the  solemn 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  73 

league  and  covenant ;  and  if  any  be  an  incendiary 
between  the  twa  nations,  how  he  is  to  be  proceed- 
ed against.  Now  the  matter  is,  wherein  we  desire 
your  opinions,  what  you  tak  the  meaning  of  this, 
word  incendiary  to  be,  and  whether  Lieutenant- 
General  Cromwell  be  not  sic  an  incendiary  as  is 
meant  thereby,  and  whilk  way  wud  be  best  to  tak 
to  proceed  against  him,  if  he  be  proved  to  be  sic 
an  incendiary,  and  that  'will  clip  his  wings  from 
soaring  to  the  prejudice  of  our  cause.  Now  you 
may  ken  that  by  our  law  in  Scotland  we  clepe 
him  an  incendiary  wha  kindleth  coals  of  conten- 
tion, and  raises  differences  in  the  state  to  the  pub- 
lic damage,  and  he  is  tanquam  puhlicus  hostis 
patri(B.  Whether  your  law  be  the  same  or  not, 
you  ken  best  wha  are  mickle  learned  therein : 
and,  therefore,  with  the  favor  of  his  excellency  we 
desire  your  judgments  in  these  points."* 

Whitelock  and  Maynard  were  men  of  whom 
Lord  Clarendon,  who  was  intimate  with  them  be- 
fore the  rebellion,  has  said,  that  "though  they 
bowed  their  knees  to  Baal,  and  so  swerved  from 
their  allegiance,  it  was  with  less  rancor  and 
malice  than  other  men.  They  never  led,  but  fol- 
lowed, and  were  rather  carried  away  with  the 
torrent  than  swam  with  the  stream,  and  failed 
through  those  infirmities  which  less  than  a  general 
defection  and  a  prosperous  rebellion  could  never  have 

[*  Whitelock,  p.  116,  ed.  1732.] 
7    . 


74  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

discovered."  Such  men  were  not  likely  to  advise 
bold  measures,  in  which  they  might  be  called  upor 
to  bear  a  part.  They  admitted  the  meaning  of  the 
word  incendiary  as  defined  by  the  Scotch  chancel- 
lor, and  as  it  stood  in  the  covenant ;  but  they  re- 
quired proofs  of  particular  words  or  actions  tending 
to  kindle  the  fire  of  contention :  they  themselves 
had  heard  of  none,  and  till  the  Scotch  commis- 
sioners could  collect  such,  they  were  of  opinion 
that  the  business  had  better  be  deferred.  And 
they  spoke  of  the  influence  and  favor  which  the 
person  in  question  possessed.  *'  I  take  Lieutenant- 
General  Cromwell,"  said  Whitelock,  "  to  be  a 
gentleman  of  quick  and  subtle  parts,  and  one  who 
hath,  especially  of  late,  gained  no  small  interest 
in  the  house  Of  commons ;  nor  is  he  wanting  of 
friends  in  the  house  of  peers,  nor  of  abilities  in 
himself  to  manage  his  own  part  or  defence  to  the 
best  advantage."*  Hollis,  Stapleton,  and  some 
others,  related  certain  acts  and  sayings  of  Crom- 
well which  they  considered  such  proofs  as  the 
law  required,  and  they  were  for  proceeding  boldly 
with  the  design.  But  the  Scotch,  who,  at  that 
time,  had  less  at  stake  than  the  leaders  of  the 
English  presbyterians,  chose  the  wary  part ;  and 
Essex  was  always  incapable  of  doing  either  good 
or  evil,  except  as  a  tool  in  the  hands  of  others. 
Cromwell  was  too  able  a  politician  not  to  have 
[♦  Whitelock,  p.  117,  ed.  1732.] 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  75 

agents  at  all  times  in  the  enemy's  quarters.  Some 
who  were  present  at  this  meeting  were  "  false 
brethren."  Whitelock  and  Maynard  were  liked 
by  him  the  better  for  the  opinion  they  had  given  ; 
the  attack  which  they  had  averted  might  easily 
have  put  an  end  to  his  career  of  advancement :  a 
sense  of  the  danger  which  he  had  escaped  quick- 
ened his  own  measures,  and  with  the  co-operation 
of  his  friends,  and  others  with  \#iom  he  then 
acted,  the  self-denying  ordinance  was  brought 
forward,  an  act  which  may  justly  be  considered 
as  the  masterpiece  of  his  hypocritical  policy. 
To  effect  this  the  alarm  was  first  sounded  by  the 
"  drum  ecclesiastic ;"  the  pulpits  were  manned  on 
one  of  the  appointed  fast  days,  and  the  topic  which 
the  London  preachers  everywhere  insisted  on, 
was  the  reproach  to  which  parliament  was  liable 
for  the  great  emoluments  which  its  members 
secured  to  themselves .  by  the  civil  or  military 
offices  which  they  held  ;  the  necessity  of  removing 
this  reproach,  and  of  praying  that  God  would  take 
his  own  work  into  his  own  hand,  and  inspire  other 
instruments  to  perfect  what  was  begun,  if  those  he 
had  already  employed  were  not  worthy  to  bring  so 
glorious  a  design  to  a  conclusion.  Parliament 
met  the  next  day,  and  Sir  Harry  Vane  (who, 
though  a  thorough  fanatic  in  his  notions,  could  not. 
have  acted  more  hypocritically  if  he  had  been  pure 
knave)  told  them  that  if  ever  God  had  appeared  to 


76  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL, 

ihem,  it  was  in  the  exercise  of  yesterday  ;  he  was 
credibly  informed  that  the  same  lamentations  and 
discourses  as  the  godly  preachers  had  made  before 
them,  had  been  made  in  all  other  churches  ;  and 
this  could  only  have  proceeded  from  the  immediate 
spirit  of  God.  He  then  offered  to  resign  an  office 
which  he  himself  held.  Cromwell  took  up  the 
strain  ;  desired  that  he  might  lay  down  his  com- 
mission, enlarged  upon  the  vices  which  were  got 
into  the  army,  "  the  profaneness  and  impiety,  and 
absence  of  all  religion,  drinking,  gaming,  and  all 
manner  of  license  and  laziness."  Till  the  whole 
army  were  new  modelled,  he  said,  and  governed 
imder  a  stricter  discipline,  they  must  not  expect 
any  notable  success  ;  and  he  desired  the  parliament 
not  to  be  terrified  with  an  imagination  that  if  the 
highest  offices  were  vacant,  they  should  not  be 
able  to  fill  them  with  fit  men,  for,  besides  that  it 
was  not  good  to  put  so  much  trust  in  any  arm  of 
flesh  as  to  think  such  a  cause  depended  upon  any 
one  man,  he  took  upon  himself  to  assure  them 
they  had  officers  in  their  army  who  were  fit  to  be 
generals  in  any  enterprise  in  Christendom.  The 
self-denying  ordinance*  was  brought  in,  and  after 

*  Mr.  Oliver  Cromwell  endeavors  to  refute  Lord  Clarendon^s 
account  of  the  origin  of  this  ordinance.  His  arguments  are, 
that  in  Cromwell's  speech  as  given  by  Rushworth  there  is  no 
allusion  to  the  fast  sermons  of  the  preceding  day,  and  that  in 
fact  the  fast  was  not  appointed  till  after  the  ordinance  was  past. 
That  this  gentleman  should  on  all  occasions  be  desirous  of 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  77 

long  debates,  and  some  contests  between  the  two 
houses,  it  was  carried.  Essex  was  laid  aside  to 
exculpating  and  vindicating  his  celebrated  ancestor,  is  to  be 
expected  ; — there  are  cases  in  which  erroneous  opinions  have 
their  root  in  such  good  and  noble  feelings,  that  he  who  would 
eradicate  them  must  profess  a  sterner  philosophy  than  a  good 
man  would  willingly  adopt.  In  the  present  instance  it  has 
been  overlooked  by  Mr.  Cromwell,  that  the  fast  of  which  he 
speaks  was  ordered  to  implore  a  blessing  on  the  intended  new 
model  of  the  army,  after  the  ordinance  was  past ;  and  that  that 
of  which  Clarendon  speaks  was  appointed  to  '*  seek  God  and 
desire  his  assistance  to  lead  them  out  of  the  perplexities  they 
were  in.'^  A  punster  of  that  age  said  that  fast  days  were 
properly  so  called  because  they  came  so  fast — they  were 
frequently  three  or  four  in  a  month.  He  has  also  failed  to 
observe  that  the  direct  allusion  to  the  preceding  fast  was 
made  not  by  Cromwell,  but  by  Sir  Harry  Vane,  And  when 
he  censures  Lord  Clarendon  for  "  taking  upon  himself  to  deter- 
mine the  motives  of  those  who  brought  about  that  ordinance," 
he  forgets  that  the  same  motives  are  hinted  at,  not  obscurely, 
by  Rushworth,  and  directly  stated  by  Whitelock,  upon  the 
avowal  of  some  of  the  parties  themselves.  ''  Some  of  them," 
he  says,  '^  confess  that  this  was  their  design  ;  and  it  was  ap- 
parent in  itself,  and  the  reason  of  their  doing  this  was  to  make 
way  for  others,  and  because  they  were  jealous  that  the  lord- 
general  was  too  much  a  favorer  of  peace,  and  that  he  would 
be  too  strong  a  supporter  of  monarchy  and  of  nobility  and 
other  old  constitutions,  which  they  had  a  mind  to  alter." 
The  only  apparent  error  which  Mr.  Cromwell  has  pointed  out 
in  Lord  Clarendon's  statement  is  his  saying  that  Whitelock 
voted  for  the  ordinance,  Whitelock  having  inserted  in  his 
memorials  his  speech  against  that  measure.  But  it  is  very 
probable  that  he  who  opposed  the  ordinance  in  December 
when  it  was  brought  forward,  might  have  assented  to  it  three 
months  afterward  for  the  reason  assigned  by  Clarendon, ''  that 
there  would  be  a  general  dissatisfaction  among  the  people  of 
London  if  it  were  rejected." 

7* 


78  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

reflect  at  leisure  upon  the  irreparable  evils  which, 
through  his  agency,  had  been  brought  upon  the 
kingdom,  and  Sir  Thomas  Fairfax  was  appointed 
general  in  his  stead. 

Few  men  have  ever  possessed  in  such  perfection 
as  Cromwell  the  art  of  rendering  others  subservient 
to  purposes  which  they  abhorred,  and  of  making 
individuals  of  the  most  opposite  characters,  views, 
and  principles,  co-operate  in  a  design  which  they 
would  all  have  opposed  if  they  had  perceived  it. 
This  rare  dissembler  availed  himself  at  the  same 
lime  of  the  sensual  and  profligate  unbeliever,  the 
austere  sectarian,  and  the  fierce  enthusiast ;  and 
played  his  master-game  at  once  with  Vane  and 
Fairfax,  though  the  former  had  the  craft  of  the 
serpent,  and  the  latter  the  simplicity  of  the  dove, 
however  unlike  that  bird  in  other  respects.  When 
Fairfax  looked  back  upon  his  exploits,  he  rightly 
accounted  them  as  his  greatest  misfortunes,  and 
desired  no  other  memorial  of  them  than  the  act  of 
oblivion  :  but  he  well  knew  that  errors  like  his 
are  not  to  be  forgotten — that  they  are  to  be  record- 
ed as  a  warning  for  others  ;  and  the  meager  me- 
morial which  he  left  of  his  own  actions  is  not  so 
valuable  for  anything  as  for  the  expression  of  that 
feeling,  wishing  that  he  had  died  before  he  accept- 
ed the  command  after  the  self-denying  ordinance 
was  passed.  "  By  votes  of  the  two  houses  of 
parliament,"  he  says,' ''  I  was  nominated,  though 


LIFE    OF    CROMWE#TT  JJ  J  y  1^7^^  g  J  ,jr 

most  unfit,  and  so  far  from  desiring  it,  that  had  not  ?v , 

so  great  an  authority  (which  was  then  unseparated  -  "J^ 
from  the  royal  interest)  commanded  my  obedience, 
and  had  I  not  been  urged  by  the  persuasion  of  my 
nearest  friends,  I  should  have  refused  so  great  a 
charge.  But  whether  it  was  from  a  natural  facility 
in  me  that  betrayed  my  modesty,  or  the  powerful 
hand  of  God,  which  all  things  must  obey,  I  was 
induced  to  receive  the  command — though  not 
fully  recovered  from  a  dangerous  wound  which  I 
had  received  a  little  before,  and  which  I  believe, 
without  the  miraculous  hand  of  God,  had  proved 
mortal.  But  here,  alas  !  when  I  bring  to  mind  the 
sad  consequences  that  crafty  and  designing  men 
have  brought  to  pass  since  those  first  innocent  un- 
dertakings, I  am  ready  to  let  go  that  confidence  I 
once  had  with  God,  when  I  could  say  with  Job, 
*  till  I  die  I  will  not  remove  my  integrity  from  me, 
nor  shall  my  heart  reproach  me  so  long  as  I  live.' 
But  1  am  now  more  fit  to  take  up  his  complaint, 
and  say,  *  why  did  I  not  die  V  Why  did  I  not 
give  up  the  ghost  when  my  life  was  on  the  confines 
of  the  grave  ?"  Fairfax  was  a  good  soldier,  but 
he  had  no  other  talents.  It  is  saying  little  for  him 
that  he  meant  well,  seeing  he  was  so  easily  per- 
suaded not  only  to  permit  wicked  actions  to  be  done, 
but  to  commit  them  himself.  His  understanding 
was  so  dull,  that  even  in  this  passage  he  speaks 
of  the  parliament  as  not  being  at  that  time  separa- 


80  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

ted  from  the  interests  of  the  king ;  and  his  feelings 
were  so  obtuse,  that  even  when  he  penned  this 
memorial  he  felt  no  remorse  for  the  execution  of 
Lucas,  and  Lisle,  and  the  excellent  Lord  Capel, 
whose  blood  was  upon  his  head,  but  justified  what 
he  had  done  as  according  to  his  commission  and 
the  trust  reposed  in  him  ! 

Such  a  man  was  easily  induced  to  request  that 
the  ordinance  might  be  dispensed  with  in  Crom- 
well's behalf,  first  for  a  limited  time  and  then  in- 
definitely, to  act  under  him  as  commander  of  the 
horse.  They  crippled  the  royal  forces  in  the 
west,  where  so  much  zeal  and  heroic  virtue  had 
successfully  been  displayed  on  the  king's  side,  but 
where  everything  now  went  to  ruin  under  the 
profligate  misconduct  of  Goring,  a  general  who, 
notwithstanding  his  unquestionable  courage  and 
military  talents,  ought  to  have  been  considered  as 
disqualified  for  any  trust  by  his  vices.  Ere  long 
they  were  ordered  to  the  north,  where  Charles  had 
struck  a  great  blow  by  the  taking  of  Leicester 
(May,  1645),  and  where  his  fortunes  might  still 
have  been  retrieved  had  it  not  been  for  the  un- 
steadiness and  irresolution  of  those  about  him,  and 
that  unhappy  diffidence  of  himself  which  made  him 
so  often  act  against  his  own  judgment  in  deference 
to  others. 

"  With  shaking  thoughts  no  hands  can  draw  aright !" 

After  some  injudicious  movements,  the  effect  of 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  81 

bad  information  and  vacillating  councils,  the  king 
met  the  enemy  at  Naseby  (14th  June,  1645).  All 
those  accidents  upon  which  so  much  depends  in 
war  were  against  him  ;  his  erroneous  information 
continued  till  the  very  hour  of  the  action,  so  that 
the  good  order  in  which  his  army  had  been  drawn 
up  was  broken,  and  the  advantageous  position 
which  they  had  occupied  abandoned  ;  in  the  action 
itself  the  same  kind  of  misconduct,  which  had 
proved  so  disastrous  at  Marston  Moor,  was  com- 
mitted, with  consequences  still  more  fatal.  Prince 
Rupert  in  time  of  action  always  forgot  the  duty  of 
a  general,  suffering  himself  to  be  carried  away  by 
mere  animal  courage  ;  no  experience,  however 
dearly  brought,  was  sufficient  to  cure  him  of  this 
fault.  His  charge,  as  usual,  was  irresistible  ;  but 
having  broken  and  routed  that  wing  of  the  enemy 
which  was  opposed  to  him,  he  pursued  them  as  if 
the  victory  were  secure.  In  this  charge  Ireton 
was  wounded,  thrown  from  his  horse,  and  taken. 
The  day  was  won  by  Cromwell,  whose  name  is 
not  mentioned  by  Ludlow  in  his  account  of  the 
battle  !*  An  unaccountable  incident  contributed 
to,  and  perhaps  mainly  occasioned  its  loss.  Just 
as  the  king,  at  the  head  of  his  reserve,  was  about 
to  charge  CromwelFs  horse,  the  earl  of  Carne- 
warth  suddenly  seized  his  bridle,  exclaiming,  with 
two  or  three  full-mouthed  Scottish  oaths,  "  Will 
[*  Ludlow^s  Memoirs,  p.  65,  ed.  1771.] 


82  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

you  go  upon  your  death  in  an  instant  ?"*  A  cry 
ran  through  the  troops  that  they  should  march  to 
the  right,  in  which  direction  the  king's  horse  had 
been  turned,  and  which,  in  the  situation  of  the 
field,  was  bidding  them  shift  for  themselves.  It 
was  in  vain  that  Charles,  with  great  personal  ex 
ertion  and  risk,  endeavored  to  rally  them.  Neither 
these  troops  nor  Prince  Rupert's,  when  he  returned 
from  his  rash  pursuit,  could  be  brought  to  rally  and 
form  in  order ;  a  most  important  part  of  discipline, 
in  which  the  soldiers  under  Fairfax  and  Cromwell 
were  perfect,  the  latter  having  now  modelled  the 
army  as  he  had  from  the  beginning  his  own  troop. 
The  day  was  irrecoverably  lost,  and  with  it  the 
king  and  the  kingdom.  The  number  of  slain  on 
the  king's  part  did  not  exceed  700,  but  more  than 
5,000  prisoners  were  taken,  being  the  whole  of 
the  infantry,  with  all  the.  artillery  and  baggage. 
In  the  pursuit  above  a  hundred  women  were  killed 
(such  was  the  temper  of  the  conquerors  !)  some 
of  whom  were  the  wives  of  officers  of  quality.  The 
king's  cabinet  fell  into  their  hands,  with  the  letters 
between  him  and  the  queen,  "  of  which,"  says 
Clarendon,  "  they  made  that  barbarous  use  as  was 
agreeable  to  their  natures,  and  published  them  in 
print ;  that  is,  so  much  of  them  as  they  thought 
would  asperse  either  of  their  majesties,  and  im- 
prove the  prejudice  they  had  raised  against  them  ; 
[*  Clar.  Hist.,  vol.  v.,  p.  185,  ed.  1826.] 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  83 

and  concealed  other  parts  which  would  have  vindi- 
cated them  from  many  particulars  with  them  which 
they  had  aspersed  them."* 

Upon  this  act  of  the  parliament  the  king  has  ex- 
pressed his  feelings  in  the  Icon  in  that  calm  strain 
of  dignity  by  which  the  book  is  distinguished  and 
authenticated.  "  The  taking  of  my  letters,"  he 
says,  "  was  an  opportunity  which,  as  the  malice 
of  mine  enemies  could  hardly  have  expected,  so 
they  knew  not  how  with  honor  and  civility  to  use  it. 
Nor  do  I  think,  with  sober  and  worthy  minds,  any- 
thing in  them  could  tend  so  much  to  my  reproach 
as  the  odious  divulging  of  them  did  to  the  infamy 
of  the  divulgers  :  the  greatest  experiments  of  vir- 
tue and  nobleness  being  discovered  in  the  greatest 
advantages  against  an  enemy  ;  and  the  greatest  ob- 
ligations being  those  which  are  put  upon  us  by  them 
from  whom  we  could  least  have  expected  them. 
And  such  I  should  have  esteemed  the  concealing 
of  my  papers,  the  freedom  and  secresy  of  which 
command  a  civility  from  all  men  not  wholly  bar- 
barous. Yet  since  Providence  will  have  it  so,  I 
am  content  so  much  of  my  heart  (which  I  study 
to  approve  to  God's  omniscience)  should  be  dis- 
covered to  the  world,  without  any  of  those  dresses 
or  popular  captations  which  some  men  use  in  their 
speecches  and  expresses.  I  wish  my  subjects  had 
yet  a  clearer  sight  into  my  most  retired  thoughts  ; 
[*  Clar.  Hist.,  voL  v.,  p.  186,  ed.  1826.] 


84  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

where  they  might  discover  how  they  are  divided 
between  the  love  and  care  I  have,  not  more  to  pre- 
serve my  own  rights  than  to  preserve  their  peace 
and  happiness  ;  and  that  extreme  grief  to  see  them 
both  deceived  and  destroyed.  Nor  can  any  men's 
malice  be  gratified  farther  by  my  letters  than  to 
see  my  constancy  to  my  wife,  the  laws,  and  reli- 
gion." Then  speaking  of  his  enemies,  he  says, 
"  They  think  no  victories  so  effectual  to  their  de- 
signs as  those  that  most  rout  and  waste  my  credit 
with  my  people  ;  in  whose  hearts  they  seek  by  all 
means  to  smother  and  extinguish  all  sparks  of  love, 
respect,  and  loyalty  to  me,  that  they  may  nevei 
kindle  again,  so  as  to  recover  mine,  the  law's  anc 
the  kingdom's  liberties,  which  some  men  seek  t( 
overthrow.  The  taking  away  of  my  credit,  is  bu 
a  necessary  preparation  to  the  taking  away  of  m) 
life  and  my  kingdom.  First  I  must  seem  neithe: 
fit  to  live,  nor  worthy  to  reign.  By  exquisite  meth 
ods  of  cunning  and  cruelty,  I  must  be  compellec 
first  to  follow  the  funerals*  of  my  honor,  and  thei 
be  destroyed." 

In  another  of  these  beautiful  meditations,  look 
ing  back  upon  the  course  of  the  war,  he  says,  " '. 
never  had  any  victory  which  was  without  my  sor 
row,  because  it  was  on  mine  own  subjects,  whc 
like  Absalom,  died  many  of  them  in  their  sir 
And  yet  I  never  suffered  any  defeat  which  mad 
me  despair  of  God's  mercy  and  defence.     I  neve 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  85 

desired  such  victories  as  might  serve  to  conquer, 
but  only  restore  the  laws  and  liberties  of  my  peo- 
ple, which  I  saw  were  extremely  oppressed,  togeth- 
er with  my  rights,  by  those  men  who  were  impa- 
tient of  any  just  restraint.  When  Providence 
gave  me  or  denied  me  victory,  my  desire  was 
neither  to  boast  of  my  power  nor  to  charge  God 
foolishly,  who  I  believed  at  last  would  make  all 
things  to  work  together  for  my  good.  I  wished  no 
greater  advantages  by  the  war  than  to  bring  my 
enemies  to  moderation  and  my  friends  ta  peace. 
I  was  afraid  of  the  temptation  of  an  absolute  con- 
quest, and  never  prayed  more  for  victory  over  oth- 
ers than  over  myself.  When  the  first  was  denied, 
the  second  was  granted  me,  which  God  saw  best 
for  me." 

The  influence  of  pure  religion  upon  a  sound  un- 
derstanding and  a  geAtle  heart  has  never  been 
more  finely  exemplified  than  by  Charles  during 
the  long  course  of  his  afllictions.  Cromwell  also 
was  religious,  but  his  religion  at  the  time  when  it 
was  most  sincere  was  most  alloyed,  and  it  acted 
upon  an  intellect  and  disposition  most  unlike  the 
king's.  Clear  as  his  head  was  in  action,  his  ap- 
prehension ready,  and  his  mind  comprehensive  as 
well  as  firm  ;  when  out  of  the  sphere  of  business 
and  command,  his  notions  were  confused  and 
muddy,  and  his  language  stifled  the  thoughts 
which  it  affected  to  bring  forth  ;  producing,  by  its 
8 


86  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

curious  infelicity,  a  more  than  oracular  obscurity. 
The  letter  which  he  addressed  to  the  speaker  after 
the  battle  of  Naseby  is  one  of  the  most  lucid  speci- 
mens of  his  misty  style.  After  saying  that  for 
three  hours  the  fight  had  been  very  doubtful,  and 
stating  what  were  the  results  of  the  action,  he 
proceeds  thus :  "  Sir,  this  is  none  other  but  the 
hand  of  God,  and  to  him  alone  belongs  the  glory, 
wherein  none  are  to  share  with  him.  The  gen- 
eral has  served  you  with  all  faithfulness  and  honor ; 
and  the  best  commendation  I  can  give  him  is,  that 
I  dare  say  he  attributes  all  to  God,  and  would  ra- 
ther perish  than  assume  to  himself,  which  is  an 
honest  and  a  thriving  way ;  and  yet  as  much  for 
bravery  may  be  given  to  him  in  this  action,  as  to 
a  man.  Honest  men  served  you  faithfully  in  this 
action.  Sir,  they  are  trusty.  I  beseech  you  in 
the  name  of  God  not  to  discourage  them.  I  wish 
this  action  may  beget  thankfulness  and  humility 
in  all  that  are  concerned  in  it.  He  that  ventures 
his  life  for  the  liberty  of  his  country,  I  wish  he 
trust  God  for  the  liberty  of  his  conscience,  and  you 
for  the  liberty  he  fights  for.  In  this  he  rests  who 
is  your  most  humble  servant,  Oliver  Cromwell."* 
After  the  fatal  defeat  at  Naseby  (June  14, 1645), 
the  royal  cause  soon  became  hopeless.  Bristol 
was  not  better  defended  by  Prince  Rupert  than  it 
had  been  by  Nathaniel  Fiennes.  During  the  siege, 
[*  Ellis's  Letters,  vol.  ili.,  p.  305,  first  series.] 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  87 

Fairfax  and  Cromwell  narrowly  escaped  from  be- 
ing killed  by  the  same  ball.  The  latter  declared 
none  but  an  atheist  could  deny  that  their  success 
was  the  work  of  the  Lord.  In  his  official  letter 
he  said,  "  It  may  be  thought  some  praises  are  due 
to  these  gallant  men  of  whose  valor  so  much  men- 
tion is  made  ;  their  humble  suit  to  you  and  all  that 
have  an  interest  in  this  blessing,  is,  that  in  re- 
membrance of  God's  praises  they  may  be  forgot- 
ten. It's  their  joy  that  they  are  instruments  to 
God's  glory  and  their  country's  good.  It's  their 
honor  that  God  vouchsafes  to  use  them.  Sir,  they 
that  have  been  employed  in  this  service  know  that 
faith  and  prayer  obtained  this  city  for  you."  The 
faith  and  prayers  of  William  Dell  and  Hugh  Pe- 
ters, chaplains  to  the  besieging  forces,  were  assist- 
ed by  the  experience  of  Skippon  in  military  opera- 
tions, by  the  fear  of  a  disaffected  party  within  the 
city,  and  by  the  sample  which  the  besiegers  ti^d 
given  of  their  intention  to  put  their  enemies  to  the 
sword  if  they  took  the  place  by  storm.  Cromwell 
next  took  Devizes  (September,  1645),  and  dis- 
armed and"3ispersed  the  clubmen  in  Hampshire, 
who  having  originally  associated  to  protect  them- 
selves against  the  excesses  of  both  parties,  con- 
tributed to  the  miseries  of  the  country  by  making 
a  third  party  as  oppressive  as  either.  Winchester 
surrendered  to  him  (October  5,  1645),  and  on  that 
occasion  he  gave  an  honorable  example  of  fidelity 


88  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

to  his  engagements  :  six  of  his  men  being  detected 
in  plundering,  in  violation  of  the  terms  of  capitu- 
lation, he  hung  one  of  them,*  and  sent  the  other 
five  to  the  king's  governor  at  Oxford,  to  be  pun- 
ished at  his  discretion.  Basing  House,  which 
had  been  so  long  and  bravely  defended,  yielded 
(Tuesday,  October  14,  1645)  to  this  fortunate  gen- 
eral, who  never  failed  in  any  enterprise  which  he 
undertook.  He  then  rejoined  Fairfax  in  the  west, 
to  complete  the  destruction  of  a  gallant  army  which 
had  been  rumed  by  worthless  and  wicked  com- 
manders. Lord  Hopton,  one  of  those  men  whose 
virtues  redeem  the  age,  had  taken  the  command 
of  it  in  a  manner  more  honorable  to  himself  than 
the  most  glorious  of  those  achievements  in  which 
he  had  formerly  been  successful :  there  was  no 
possibility  of  averting  or  even  delaying  a  total  de- 
feat. When  Prince  Charles  entreated  him  to  take 
upon  himself  the  forlorn  charge  of  commanding  it, 
Lord  Hopton  replied  that  it  was  the  custom  now, 
when  men  were  not  willing  to  submit  to  what  they 
were  enjoined,  to  say  it  was  against  their  honor  ; 
for  himself  he  could  not  obey  in  this  instance 
without  resolving  to  lose  his  honor  :  but  since  his 
highness  thought  it  necessary  so  to  command  him, 
even  at  that  cost  he  was  ready  to  obey.  He  made 
so  gallant  a  resistance  at  Torrington,t  though  great 

[*  They  first  cast  lots  for  their  lives.   Rushworth,  fol.  1701, 
p.  92.] 

[t  Against  Fairfax,  February,  1645-'46.] 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  B9 

part  of  his  men  behaved  basely,  that  the  parlia- 
mentary forces  suffered  greater  loss  than  at  any 
other  storm  in  which  they  were  engaged ;  and 
when  his  army  was  finally  broken  up,  as  much  by 
the  license  and  mutinous  temper  of  the  men  and 
officers,  as  by  the  enemy's  overpowering  force,  he 
disdained  to  make  terms  for  himself,  and  retired 
with  the  ammunition,  and  those  who  remained 
faithful,  into  Pendennis  castle.  The  last  possi- 
bility which  remained  to  the  king  of  collecting  an 
army  in  the  field  was  destroyed  when  Lord  Astley 
was  defeated  by  superior  numbers  and  taken.*  At 
the  beginning  of  the  war,  this  gallant  soldier,  be- 
fore he  charged  in  the  battle  of  Edgehill,  made  a 
prayer,  of  which  Hume  says,  there  were  certainly 
much  longer  ones  said  in  the  parliamentary  army, 
but  it  may  be  doubted  whether  there  were  so  good 
a  one.  It  was  simply  this  :  *'  O  Lord  !  thouknow- 
est  how  busy  I  must  be  this  day !  If  I  forget  thee, 
do  not  thou  forget  me."  He  now  concluded  his 
brave  and  irreproachable  career,  by  a  saying  not 
less  to  be  remembered  by  the  enemy's  officers  : 
"  You  have  done  your  woric,  and  may  now  go  to  play, 
unless  you  choose  to  fall  out  among  yourselves." 
Even  before  the  loss  of  Bristol,!  Charles,  whose 

[♦  Near  Stow  in  the  Wold  in  Gloucestershire,  21st  March, 
1645-'46.] 

[t  Prince  Rupert  surrendered  Bristol  to  Sir  Thomas  Fair- 
fax, 11th  September,  1645.] 

8* 


90  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

judgment  seldom  deceived  him,  had  seen  that  the 
worst  was  to  be  expected,  and  made  up  his  mind 
to  endure  it  as  became  him.  In  reply  to  a  letter 
from  Prince  Rupert,  who  had  advised  him  again 
to  propose  a  treaty  after  that  at  Uxbridge  had 
failed,  he  pointed  out  the  certainty  that  no  terms 
would  be  granted  which  it  woidd  not  be  criminal 
in  him  to  accept ;  and  at  the  same  time  fairly  ac- 
knowledged the  hopelessness  of  his  affairs,  save 
only  for  his  trust  in  God.  "  I  confess,"  he  said, 
**  that  speaking  either  as  to  mere  soldier  or  states- 
man, I  must  say  there  is  no  probability  but  of  my 
ruin  :  but  as  to  Christian,  I  must  tell  you  that  God 
will  not  suffer  rebels  to  prosper,  or  his  cause  to 
be  overthrown  :  and  whatsoever  personal  punish- 
ment it  shall  please  him  to  inflict  upon  me,  must 
not  make  me  repine,  much  less  to  give  over  the 
quarrel.  Indeed,  I  can  not  flatter  myself  with 
expectation  of  good  success  more  than  this,  to  end 
my  days  with  honor  and  a  good  conscience  ;  which 
obliges  me  to  continue  my  endeavors,  as  not  de- 
spairing that  God  may  in  due  time  avenge  his 
own  cause.  Though  I  muBt  avow  to  all  my  friends 
that  he  that  will  stay  with  me  at  this  time  must 
expect  and  resolve,  either  to  die  for  a  good  cause,, 
or,  which  is  worse,  to  live  as  miserable  in  the 
maintaining  it,  as  the  violence  of  insulting  rebels 
can  make  him."  The  prospect  of  dying  in  the 
field,  which  it  appears  from  these  expressions  the 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  91 

king  contemplated  with  a  complacent  resignation, 
and  perhaps  with  hope,  was  at  an  end  when  Lord 
Astley  was  defeated  :  in  expectation  of  this  he 
had  already  consulted  for  the  safety  of  the  prince 
of  Wales,  and  it  was  now  to  be  determined  whith- 
er he  should  betake  himself.  He  offered  to  put 
himself  in  the  hands  of  two  commanders  who  at 
some  distance  were  blockading  Oxford,  if  they 
would  pass  their  words  that  they  would  immedi- 
ately conduct  him  to  the  parliament ;  for  in  battle 
or  in  debate  Charles  was  always  ready  to  face  his 
enemies,  and  in  debate  with  the  advantage  of  a 
collected  mind,  a  sound  judgment,  a  ready  utter- 
ance, and  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  points  in 
dispute.  He  knew  also  that,  throughout  this  fatal 
contest,  the  hearts  of  a  great  majority  of  the  people 
were  with  him  ;  and  though  the  strength  of  the 
rebellious  party  lay  in  London,  yet  even  there  he 
thought  so  much  loyalty  was  left,  and  so  much 
regard  for  his  person,  that  he  would  willingly  have 
been  in  it  at  this  time.  But  the  parliamentary 
generals,  whose  purpose  it  always  was  to  prevent 
the  possibility  of  any  accommodation  which  would 
have  restored  even  a  nominal  authority  to  the  sov- 
ereign, refused  to  enter  into  any  such  engagement ; 
and  the  avenues  of  the  city  were  strictly  watched, 
lest  he  should  enter  secretly.  Another  and  better 
hope  was  to  join  Montrose,  who  was  then  in  his 
career  of  victory.    The  representations  of  M.  Mon- 


vT 


92  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

trevil,  a  French  agent,  who  was  at  that  time  with 
the  Scotch  army  before  Newark,  and  the  promises 
of  the  Scotch  made  to  that  agent,  that  they  would 
receive  him  as  their  sovereign,  and  effectually 
join  with  him  for  the  recovery  of  his  just  rights, 
induced  him  to  take  that  step.  "  They  have  of- 
ten," he  says,  "professed  they  have  fought  not 
against  me,  but  for  me.  I  must  now  resolve  the 
riddle  of  their  loyalty,  and  give  them  opportunity 
to  let  the  world  see  they  mean  not  what  they  do, 
but  what  they  say." 

When  that  memorable  bargain  was  concluded, 
by  which  the  Scotch  sold  and  the  English  bought 
their  king,  Cromwell  was  one  of  the  commission- 
ers. Yet  it  is  represented  by  his  bitterest  enemy, 
Hollis,  that  nothing  could  have  been  so  desirable 
for  Cromwell,  and  nothing  so  much  wished  for  by 
that  party  who  were  bent  upon  destroying  monar- 
chy, as  that  the  Scotch  should  have  taken  Charles 
with  them  into  Scotland,  instead  of  delivering  him 
into  the  hands  of  the  parliament ;  and  he  speaks 
of  the  sale  as  singularly  honorable  to  both  the  con- 
tracting parties  !  "  Here,  then,"  he  says,  "  the 
very  mouth  of  iniquity  was  stopped  :  malice  itself 
had  nothing  to  say  to  give  the  least  blemish  to  the 
faithfulness  and  reality  of  the  kingdom  of  Scot- 
land, the  clearness  of  their  proceedings,  their  zeal 
for  peace,  without  self-seeking  and  self-ends,  or 
any  endeavors  to  make  advantage  of  the  miseries 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  93 

and  misfortunes  of  England."*  Charles  himself 
saw  the  transaction  in  a  very  different  light,  as 
posterity  has  done.  He  declared  that  he  was 
bought  and  sold.  ''  Yet,"  he  says  in  the  Icon, 
"  may  I  justify  those  Scots  to  all  the  world  in  this, 
that  they  have  not  deceived  me,  for  I  never  trusted 
to  them,  further  than  to  men.  If  I  am  sold  by 
them,  I  am  only  sorry  they  should  do  it ;  and  that 
my  price  should  be  so  much  above  my  Savior's  ! — 
Better  others  betray  me  than  myself,  and  that  the 
price  of  my  liberty  should  be  my  conscience.  The 
greatest  injuries  my  enemies  seek  to  inflict  upon 
me  can  not  be  without  my  own  consent." 

The  Scotch  nation  in  general  were  sensible  of 
the  infamy  which  had  been  brought  upon  them  by 
this  act.  The  English  were  at  first  deceived  by 
it :  for,  rightly  perceiving  that  peace  and  tranquil- 
lity could  not  be  restored  by  any  other  means 
than  by  the  restoration  of  the  king  to  those  just 
rights  and  privileges  which  he  holds  for  the  good 
of  all,  they  believed  that  he  was  now  to  be  brought 
in  honor  and  safety  to  London.  As  he  was  taken 
from  Newcastle  to  Holmby,  they  flocked  from  all 
parts  to  see  him  ;  and  scrofulous  patients  were 
brought  to  receive  the  royal  touch,  in  full  belief 
of  its  virtue,  and  with  entire  affection  to  his  per- 
son. If  the  intentions  of  Hollis  and  the  presby- 
terian  party  had  been  such  as  they  were  afterward 
[*  Hollis,  in  Maseres'  tracts,  vol.  i.,  p.  230.] 


94  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

desirous  to  make  the  world  believe,  they  had  it  in 
their  power  now  to  have  imposed  upon  the  king 
any  terms  to  which  he  could  conscientiously  have 
submitted  ;  and  the  army  were  not  yet  so  com- 
pletely lords  of  the  ascendant  as  to  have  prevented 
such  an  accommodation.  But  that  party  had 
brought  on  the  civil  war ;  had  slandered  the  king 
in  the  foulest  spirit  of  calumny  ;  and  on  every  oc- 
casion had  acted  toward  him  precisely  in  that 
manner  which  would  wound  and  insult  him  most  : 
it  is  impossible  to  know  what  catastrophe  they 
designed  for  the  tragedy  which  they  had  planned 
and  carried  on  thus  far  ;  but  it  is  not  possible  that 
they  intended  a  termination  which  should  have 
been  compatible  with  the  honor  and  well-being  of 
the  sovereign  whom  they  had  so  bitterly  injured. 
With  that  brutality  which  characterized  all  their 
proceedings  toward  him,  they  refused  to  let  any 
of  his  chaplains  attend  him  at  this  time.  There 
is  no  subject  upon  which  the  king,  in  his  lonely 
meditations,  has  expressed  himself  with  more  feel- 
ing than  upon  this.  He  says,  "  When  Providence 
was  pleased  to  deprive  me  of  all  other  civil  com- 
forts and  secular  attendants,  I  thought  the  absence 
of  them  all  might  best  be  supplied  by  the  attend- 
ance of  some  of  my  chaplains,  whom  for  their 
functions  I  reverence,  and  for  their  fidelity  I  have 
cause  to  love.  By  their  learning,  piety,  and  pray- 
ers, I  hoped  to  be  either  better  enabled  to  sustain 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  95 

the  want  of  all  other  enjoyments,  or  better  fitted 
for  the  recovery  and  use  of  them  in  God's  good 
time.  The  solitude  they  have  confined  me  unto 
adds  the  wilderness  to  my  temptation  ;  for  the 
company  they  obtrude  upon  me  is  more  sad  than 
any  solitude  can  be.  If  I  had  asked  my  revenues, 
my  power  or  the  militia,  or  any  one  of  my  king- 
doms, it  had  been  no  wonder,  to  have  been  denied 
in  those  things,  where  the  evil  policy  of  men  for- 
bids all  just  restitution,  lest  they  should  confess 
an  injurious  usurpation  :  but  to  deny  me  the  ghost- 
ly comfort  of  my  chaplains  seems  a  greater  rigor 
and  barbarity  than  is  ever  used  by  Christians  to 
the  meanest  prisoners  and  greatest  malefactors. 
But  my  agony  must  not  be  relieved  with  the  pres- 
ence of  any  one  good  angel ;  for  such  I  account  a 
learned,  godly,  and  discreet  divine  :  and  such  I 
would  have  all  mine  to  be.  To  thee,  therefore,  O 
God,  do  I  direct  my  now  solitary  prayers !  What 
I  want  of  others'  help,  supply  with  the  more  im- 
mediate assistance  of  thy  Spirit :  in  thee  is  all 
fulness  :  from  thee  is  all  sufficiency :  by  thee  is 
all  acceptance.  Thou  art  company  enough,  and 
comfort  enough.  Thou  art  my  King,  be  also  my 
prophet  and  my  priest.  Rule  me,  teach  me,  pray 
in  me,  for  me,  and  be  thou  ever  with  me." 

The  parliamentary  leaders  had  no  sooner  won 
the  victory  than  they  began  to  divide  the  spoils. 
The  parliament,  by  virtue  of  that  sovereign  authori- 


96  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

ty  which  it  had  usurped,  created  Essex  and  War- 
wick dukes  ;  Mollis  was  made  a  viscount ;  Haz- 
lerigg,  Vane,  Fairfax,  and  Cromwell,  barons,  the 
latter  with  a  revenue  of  2,500/.,  charged  upon  the 
estates  of  the  marquis  of  Worcester.  They  filled 
up  the  places  of  those  members  who  followed  the 
king's  party,  or  whom  their  violent  measures  had 
driven  from  the  house ;  and  this  was  done  with  a 
contempt  of  the  laws  which  indicated  that  the 
people  of  England  were  now  under  the  dominion 
of  the  sword.  ''  First,"  says  HoUis  (who,  being 
now  on  the  weaker  side,  could  see  the  enormity 
of  their  proceedings), — "  first  they  did  all  they 
could  to  stop  writs  from  going  any  whither  but 
where  they  were  sure  to  have  fit  men  chosen  for 
their  turns ;  and  many  an  unjust  thing  was  done 
by  them  in  that  kind ;  sometimes  denying  writs, 
sometimes  delaying  till  they  had  prepared  all  things 
and  made  it,  as  they  thought,  cock  sure  ;  many 
times  committee-men  in  the  country,  such  as  were 
their  creatures,  appearing  grossly,  and  bandying 
to  carry  elections  for  them  ;  sometimes  they  did 
it  fairly  by  the  power  of  the  army,  causing  soldiers 
to  be  sent  and  quartered  in  the  towns  where  elec- 
tions were  to  be  ;  awing  and  terrifying,  sometimes 
abusing  and  offering  violence  to  the  electors." 
The  self-denying  ordinance  was  totally  disregarded 
now  :  it  had  effected  the  object  for  which  it  was 
designed ;  and  perhaps  as  the  war  in  England  was 


LIFE    OF    CROM'V^Kii.*.,   «  ^  97 

U  h  I  '. 

at  an  end,  it  may  have  been  fairly  supposed  to  have 
expired.    Many  officers  therefore  W^ere  now  return- 
ed, and  among  them,  Ludlow,  Ireton,  and  Fairfax. 
The  two  former  were  republicans,  who  emulated 
ithe  old  Romans  in  the  severity  of  their  character, 
and  looked  upon  it  as  a  virtue  to  be  inexorable. 
Ludlow  has  related  of  himself  that,  meeting  in  a 
skirmish  with  an  old  acquaintance  and  schoolfellow 
who  was  on  the  king's  side,  he  expressed  his  sor- 
row at  seeing  him  in  that  party,  and  offered  to  ex- 
change a  shot  with  him.     He  relates  also  that 
I  when  he  was  defending  Warder  Castle,  one  of  the 
besiegers  who  was  killed,  said  just  before  he  ex- 
pired, that  he  saw  his  own  brother  fire  the  musket 
by  which  he  received  his  mortal  wound ;  and  in- 
stead of  expressing  a  human  feeling  at  his  fright- 
ful example  of  the  horrors  of  civil  war,  he  adds 
,hat  it  might  probably  be,  his  brother  having  been 
)ne  of  those  who  defended  the  breach  where  he 
^as  shot ;  "  but  if  it  were  so,  he  might  justly  do 
t  by  the  laws  of  God  and  man,  it  being  done  in  the 
Hscharge  of  his  duty  and  in  his  own  defence." 
^ith  such  deliberate  inhumanity  did  Ludlow  in 
)ld  age  and  retirement  comment  upon  a  fact,  which, 
5ven  in  the  fever  of  political  enthusiasm  and  the 
leat  of  battle,  ought  to  have  made  him  shudder. 

That  party,  who  would  have  been  satisfied  with 
he  establishment  of  a  presbyterian  church,  and 
he  enjoyment  of  offices,  honors,  and  emoluments, 
9 


98  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

under  a  king  whom  they  wished  to  preserve  only 
as  a  puppet  for  their  own  purposes,  would  now 
gladly  have  reduced  an  army  of  which  they  begar 
to  stand  in  fear  :  for  since  it  had  been  new-model- 
led, the  independents  had  obtained  the  ascendenc) 
there  ;  and  those  principles  which  Cromwell  a 
the  first  avowed  to  his  own  troop,  were  now  be 
coming  common  among  the  soldiers.     They  ha( 
been  taught  to  believe  that  the  king  was  an  enem] 
and  a  tyrant :  and  drawing  from  false  premises  ;ij 
just  conclusion,  they  reasoned  that,  because  it  wa 
lawful  to  fight  against  him,  it  was  right  also  li 
destroy  him.     They  saw  through  the  hypocrisi 
of  the  presbyterians,  whom  they  called  with  sai 
castic  truth  the  dissembly  men  ;    and  being  led  b 
their  own  situation  to  speculate  upon  the  origin  o 
dignities  and  powers,  they  asked  what  were  tb 
lords   of   England  but  William    the   Conqueror 
colonels  1  or  the  barons  but  his  majors  ]  or  tb 
knights  but  his  captains  ?     The  parliament  ha 
just  reason  to  fear  an  army  in  !his  temper  ;  and  ti: 
army  had  equal  reason  to  complain  of  the  parli; 
ment,  because  their  pay  was  in  arrears  :  they  wei 
therefore  to  be  disbanded,  the  commissioned  office^ 
to  receive  debentures  for  what  was  due  to  thet 
and  the  non-commissioned  officers  and  privates 
promise,  secured  upon  the  excise.     But  men  wll 
had  arms  in  their  hands  were  easily  persuad(r 
that  they  might  use  them  with  as  much  justice  [ 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  99 

intimidate  the  parliament,  as  to  subdue  the  king. 
That  they  might  have  their  deliberative  assemblies 
also,  under  whose  authority  they  might  proceed, 
they  appointed  a  certain  number  of  officers  which 
they  called  the  general  council  of  officers,  who 
were  to  act  as  their  house  of  peers  ;  and  the 
common  soldiers  chose  three  or  four  from  every 
iiegiment,  mostly  corporals  or  sergeants,  few  or 
none  above  the  rank  of  an  ensign,  who  were  called 
agitators,  and  were  to  be  the  army's  house  of 
commons.  The  president  of  these  agitators  was 
a  remarkable  man,  by  name  James  Berry ;  he  had 
originally  been  a  clerk  in  some  iron-works.  In 
the  course  of  the  revolution  he  sat  in  the  upper 
house.  He  was  one  of  the  principle  actors  in 
pulling  down  Richard  Cromwell ;  became  after- 
iward  one  of  the  council  of  state  ;  was  imprisoned 
after  the  restoration  as  one  of  the  four  men  whom 
Monk  considered  the  most  dangerous  ;  and  finally, 
being  liberated,  became  a  gardener,  and  finished 
his  life  in  obscurity  and  peace. 

Both  the  council  of  officers  and  tlie  agitators 
were  composed  of  Cromwell's  creatures,  or  of  men 
who,  being  thorough  fanatics,  did  his  work  equally 
well  in  stupid  sincerity.  They  presented  a  bold 
iddress  to  parliament  declaring  that  they  would 
leither  be  divided  nor  disbanded  till  their  full 
irrears  were  paid,  and  demanding  that  no  member 
)f  the  army  should  be  tried  by  any  other  judicatory 


100  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 


I 


than  a  council  of  war.  "  They  did  not,"  they 
said,  "  look  upon  themselves  as  a  band  of  janiza- 
ries, hired  only  to  fight  the  battles  of  the  parlia- 
ment ;  they  had  voluntarily  taken  up  arms  for  the 
liberty  of  the  nation  of  which  they  were  a  part, 
and  before  they  laid  those  arms  down  they  would 
see  that  end  well  provided  for."  The  men  who 
presented  this  address  behaved  with  such  audacity 
at  the  bar  of  the  house  of  commons,  that  there 
were  some  who  moved  for  their  committal :  but 
they  had  friends  even  there  to  protect  them,  one 
of  whom  replied  that  he  would  have  them  com- 
mitted indeed,  but  it  should  be  to  the  best  inn  in 
the  town,  where  plenty  of  good  sack  and  sugar 
should  be  provided  for  them.  As  the  dispute  pro- 
ceeded, the  army  held  louder  language,  and  the 
parliament  took  stronger  measures,  causing  some 
of  the  boldest  among  the  soldiers  to  be  imprisoned. 
Cromwell  supported  the  house  in  this,  expressed 
great  indignation  at  the  insolence  of  the  troops, 
and  complained  even  with  tears,  that  there  had 
even  been  a  design  of  killing  him,  so  odious  had 
he  been  made  to  the  army  by  men  who  were  de- 
sirous of  again  imbruing  the  nation  in  blood ! 
Yet  he  had  said  to  Ludlow  that  "  it  was  a  miser- 
able thing  to  serve  a  parliament,  to  whom  let  a 
man  be  never  so  faithful,  if  one  pragmatical  fellow 
among  them  rise  up  and  asperse  him,  he  shall 
never  wipe  it  off;  whereas,"  said  he,  "  when  one 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  101 

serves  under  a  general,  he  may  do  as  much  ser- 
vice and  yet  be  free  from  all  blame  and  envy." 
And  during  these  very  discussions  he  whispered 
in  the  house  to  Ludlow,  "  These  men  will  never 
leave  till  the  army  pull  them  out  by  the  ears."  If 
Ludlow  suspected  any  sinister  view  in  Cromwell, 
he  was  himself  too  much  engaged  with  the  army 
to  notice  it  at  that  time.  But  there  were  other 
members  whose  opposite  interest  opened  their 
eyes  ;  and  who,  knowing  that  Cromwell  was  the 
secret  directorof  those  very  measures  against  which 
he  inveighed,  resolved  to  send  him  to  the  tower, 
believing  that  if  he  were  once  removed,  the  army 
might  easily  be  reduced  to  obedience.  They 
estimated  his  authority  more  justly  than  they  did 
their  own.  It  appears  that  he  expected  a  more 
violent  contest  than  actually  ensued  ;  for  he  and 
many  of  the  independents  privately  removed  their 
effects  from  London,  "  leaving,"  says  Hollis,  "  city 
and  parliament  as  marked  out  for  destruction." 
He  had  timely  notice  of  the  design  against  him, 
and  on  the  very  morning  when  they  proposed  to 
arrest  him,  he  set  out  for  the  army  :  but  still  pre- 
serving that  dissimulation  which  he  never  laid 
aside  where  it  could  possibly  be  useful,  he  wrote 
to  the  house  of  commons,  saying,  that  his  presence 
was  necessary  to  reclaim  the  soldiers,  who  had 
been  abused  by  misinformation  ;  and  desiring  that 
the    general    (Fairfax),    and  such   other   officers 


102  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

who  were  in  the  house  or  in  town,  might  be  sent 
to  their  quarters  to  assist  hirn  in  that  good  work. 

On  the  very  day  that  Cromwell  joined  the  army, 
the  king  was  carried  from  Holmby  by  Joyce  (3d 
June,  1647).  That  gray  discrowned  head,  as  he 
himself  beautifully  calls  it,  the  sight  of  which  drew 
tears  from  his  friends,  and  moved  many  even  of  his 
enemies  to  compunction  as  well  as  pity,  excited 
no  feeling  or  respect  in  this  hard  and  vulgar  ruffian, 
who  had  formerly  been  a  tailor  and  afterward  a 
menial  servant  i.i  Hollis's  family.  He  produced 
a  pistol  as  the  authority  which  the  king  was  to 
obey,  and  Charles  believed  that  the  intention  in 
carrying  him  away  was  to  murder  him.  Whether 
Joyce  was  employed  by  the  agitators,  of  whose 
body  he  was  one,  or  whether,  as  Hollis*  asserts 
and  as  is  generally  believed,  Cromwell  sent  him, 
is  of  no  consequence  in  Cromwell's  character 
(though  his  descendant  strenuously  endeavors  to 
show  that  he  had  no  concern  in  the  transaction), 
for  it  is  only  a  question  whether  he  was  mediately 
or  immediately  the  author.  .  The  insolence  with 
which  the  act  was  performed  is  imputable  to  the 
agent ;  and  there  is  some  reason  to  believe  that, 
whatever  may  have  been  the  intention  of  Ireton, 
St.  John,  Vane,  and  other  men  of  that  stamp, 
Cromwell  himself  was  at  that  time  very  far  from 
having  determined  upon  the  death  of  the  king.  It 
{*  Hollis,  in  Maseres'  tracts,  vol.  i.,  p.  246.] 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  103 

was  plain  th^t  the  parliament  had  no  intention  of 
making  any  terms  with  the  king,  except  such  as 
would  have  left  him  less  real  power  than  the  oli- 
garchs of  Venice  intrusted  to  their  doge  ;  and  it 
was  not  less  obvious  that,  as  Charles  might  ex- 
pect more  equitable  conditions  from  the  army,  who 
would  treat  with  him  as  a  part  of  the  nation,  not 
as  a  body  contending  for  sovereignty,  so  on  his 
side  he  would  come  to  the  treaty  with  better  hope 
and  a  kindlier  disposition.  Indeed,  at  this  time 
he  looked  upon  them  with  the  feelings  of  a  British 
king.  "  Though  they  have  fought  against  me," 
said  he,  "  yet  I  can  not  but  so  far  esteem  that 
valor  and  gallantry  they  have  sometimes  showed, 
as  to  wish  I  may  never  want  such  men  to  main- 
tain myself,  my  laws,  and  my  kingdom,  in  such  a 
peace  as  wherein  they  may  enjoy  their  share  and 
proportion  as  much  as  any  men."  He  had  changed 
his  keepers  and  his  prison,  but  not  his  captive  con- 
dition ;  only  there  was  this  hope  of  bettering,  that 
they  who  were  such  professed  patrons  of  the  peo- 
ple's liberty,  could  not  be  utterly  against  the  liberty 
of  the  king.  "  What  they  demanded  for  their  own 
conscience,"  said  he,  "  they  can  not  in  reason  deny 
to  mine  ;"  and  it  consoled  him  to  believe  that  the 
world  would  now  see  a  king  could  not  be  so  low 
as  not  to  be  considerable,  adding  right  to  that  party 
where  he  appeared. 

So  far  he  was  right ;  it  is  the  lively  expression 


» 


104  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

of  Hollis  that  the  army  made  that  use  of  the  king 
which  the  Philistines  would  have  made  of  the 
ark,  and  that  and  their  power  together  made  them 
prevail.  The  description  which  he  gives  of  the 
parliament  at  this  crisis  holds  forth  an  awful 
warning  to  those  who  fancy  that  it  is  as  easy  to 
direct  the  commotions  of  a  state  as  to  excite  them  ; 
it  is  a  faithful  picture  drawn  by  a  leading  member 
of  that  faction  which  had  raised  and  hitherto 
guided  the  rebellion  :  "  They  now  thunder  upon 
us,"  he  says,  "  with  remonstrances,  declarations^ 
letters,  and  messages  every  day,  commanding  one 
day  one  thing,  the  next  day  another,  making  us 
vote  and  unvote,  do  and  undo  ;  and  when  they  had 
made  us  do  some  ugly  thing,  jeer  us,  and  say  our 
doing  justifies  their  desiring  it."* — "  We  feel  as 
low  as  dirt,"  he  says  ;  "  take  all  our  ordinances  in 
pieces,  change  and  alter  them  according  to  their 
minds,  and  (which  is  worst  of  all)  expunge  our 
declaration  against  their  mutinous  petition,  cry 
peccavimus  to  save  a  whipping :  but  all  would  noi 
do  ! — All  was  dashed"  (it  is  still  Hollis  the  parlia- 
mentarian who  speaks) :  "  instead  of  a  generous 
resistance  to  the  insolencies  of  perfidious  servants, 
vindicating  the  honor  of  the  parliament,  discharg- 
ing the  trust  that  lay  upon  them  to  preserve  a  poor 
people  from  being  ruined  and  enslaved  to  a  rebel- 
lious army,  they  deliver  up  themselves  and  king- , 
[*  HolliS;  in  Maseres'  tracts,  vol.  i.,  p.  254.]  ij| 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  105 

dom  to  the  will  of  their  enemies ;  prostitute  all  to 
the  lust  of  heady  and  violent  men  ;  and  suffer  Mr. 
Cromwell  to  saddle,  ride,  switch,  and  spur  them 
at  his  pleasure."  Ride  them  indeed  he  did  with  a 
martingale  ;  and  it  was  not  all  the  wincing  of  the 
galled  jade  that  could  shake  the  practised  horse- 
man in  his  seat.  Poor  Mollis  complains  that 
"  presbyterians  were  trumps  no  longer."  Clubs 
were  trumps  now,  and  the  knave  in  that  suit,  as  in 
the  former,  was  the  best  card  in  the  pack.  When 
the  parliament  had  done  whatever  the  army  re- 
quired, "  prostituting  their  honors,  renouncing 
whatever  would  be  of  strength  or  safety  to  them, 
casting  themselves  down  naked,  helpless,  and 
hopeless,  at  the  proud  feet  of  their  domineering 
masters,  it  is  all  to  no  purpose  ;  it  does  but  en- 
courage those  merciless  men  to  trample  the  more 
upon  them." 

So  it  was,  and  properly  so.     This  was  the  re- 
ward of  the  presbyterian  party  for 

"  For  letting  rapine  loose  and  murther 
To  rage  just  so  far  and  no  further, 
And  setting  all  the  land  on  fire 
To  burn  to  a  scantling  and  no  higher ; 
For  venturing  to  assassinate, 
And  cut  the  throats  of  church  and  state.'* 

This  they  had  done  ;  and  instead  of  being,  as  they 

had  calculated  upon  being, 

*'  Allowed  the  fittest  men 
To  take  the  charge  of  both  again," 


106  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

they  were  now 

,   "  Out-gifted,  out-impulsed,  outdone, 
And  out-revealed  at  carryings-on  j 
Of  all  their  dispensations  wormed. 
Out-providenced,  and  out-reformed, 
Ejected  out  of  church  and  state, 
And  all  things — but  the  people's  hate.*' 

As  the  question  stood  between  the  parliament 
and  the  army,  the  army  was  in  the  right.  What- 
ever arguments  held  good  for  resisting  the  king, 
availed  a  fortiori  for  resisting  the  parliament ;  its 
little  finger  was  heavier  than  his  loins  ;  and  where 
the  old  authorities  had  used  a  whip,  the  parlia- 
ment had  scourged  the  nation  with  scorpions. 
The  change  ia  ecclesiastical  affairs  was  of  the 
same  kind.  New  presbyter  was  old  priest  written 
large — and  in  blacker  characters.  Cromwell  had 
force  of  reason  as  well  as  force  of  arms  on  his 
side  ;  and  if  he  had  possessed  a  legitimate  weight 
in  the  country,  like  Essex,  it  is  likely  that  he 
would  now  have  used  it  to  the  best  purpose,  and 
have  done  honorably  for  himself  and  beneficially 
for  the  kingdom,  what  was  afterward  effected  by 
Monk,  with  too  little  regard  to  any  interest  except 
his  own.  It  is  said  that  he  required  for  himself, 
as  the  reward  of  this  service  to  his  sovereign,  the 
garter,  the  title  of  the  earl  of  Essex,  vacant  by  the 
death  of  the  late  general  (September  14,  1646), 
and  a  proper  object  of  ambition  to  Cromwell,  as 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  107 

having  formerly  been  in  his  family ;  to  be  made 
first  captain  of  the  guards,  and  vicar-general  of  the 
kingdom.  All  this  he  would  have  deserved,  if  he 
had  restored  peace  and  security  to  the  nation  by 
re-establishing  the  monarchy  with  those  just  limi- 
tations, the  propriety  of  which  was  seen  and  ac- 
knowledged by  the  king  himself.  But  if  Crom- 
well desired  to  do  this,,  which  may  reasonably  be 
presumed,  the  power  which  he  then  possessed 
was  not  sufficient  for  it.  It  was  a  revolutionary 
power,  not  transferable  to  the  better  cause  without 
great  diminution.  In  the  movements  of  the  revo- 
lutionary sphere  his  star  was  rising,  but  it  was  not 
yet  lord  of  the  ascendant ;  and  in  raising  himself 
to  his  present  station,  he  had,  like  the  unlucky 
magician  in  romance,  conjured  up  stronger  spirits 
than  he  was  yet  master  enough  of  the  black  art  to 
control.  Under  his  management,  the  moral  disci- 
pline of  the  army  was  as  perfect  as  that  of  the 
Swedes  under  the  great  Gustavus,  whom  it  is  not 
improbable  that  Cromwell  in  this  point. took  for 
his  model.  He  had  been  most  strict  and  severe 
in  chastising  all  irregularities,  "  insomuch,"  says 
Clarendon,  "  that  sure  there  was  never  any  such 
body  of  men,  so  without  rapine,  swearing,  drink- 
ing, or  any  other  debauchery — but  the  wickedness 
of  their  hearts."  He  had  brought  them  to  this 
state  by  means  of  religious  enthusiasm,  the  most 
powerful  and  the  most  perilous  of  all  principles 


108  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

which  an  ambitious  man  can  call  into  action. 
When  the  parliamentary  army  first  took  the  field, 
every  regiment  had  its  preacher,  who  beat  the 
drum  ecclesiastic,  and  detorted  scripture  to  serve 
the  purposes  of  rebellion.  The  battle  of  Edgehill 
(October  23,  1642)  sickened  them  of  service  in  the 
field  ;  almost  all  of  them  went  home  after  that  ac- 
tion :  and  when  the  tide  of  success  set  in  against 
the  king,  they  had  little  inclination  to  return  to 
their  posts,  because  the  other  sectaries  with  whom 
the  army  swarmed  beat  them  at  their  own  weap- 
ons. Baxter  says  it  was  the  ministers  that  lost 
all,  by  forsaking  the  army  and  betaking  themselves 
to  an  easier  and  quieter  way  of  life  ;  and  he  espe- 
cially repented  that  he  had  not  accepted  the  chap- 
lainship  of  that  famous  troop  with  which  Cromwell 
began  his  army ;  persuading  himself  that  if  he  had 
been  among  them,  he  might  have  prevented  the 
spreading  of  that  fire  which  was  then  in  one  spark. 
Baxter  is  one  of  those  men  whose  lives  exemplify 
the  strength  and  the  weakness  of  the  human  mind. 
He  fancied  that  the  bellows  which  had  been  used 
for  kindling  the  fire,  could  blow  it  out  when  the 
house  was  in  flames !  He  might  as  well  have 
supposed  that  he  could  put  out  Etna  with  an  ex- 
tinguisher, or  have  stilled  an  earthquake  by  setting 
his  foot  upon  the  ground. 

In  the  anarchy  which  the  war  produced,  some 
of  the  preachers  acted  as  officers  ;   and,  on  the 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 


109^ 


other  hand,  officers,  with  at  least  as  much  propri- 
ety, acted  as  preachers.  Cromwell  himself  edified 
the  army  by  his  discourses  ;  and  every  common 
soldier  who  carried  a  voluble  tongue,  and  either 
was  or  pretended  to  be  a  fanatic,  held  forth  from  a 
pulpit  or  a  tub.     The  land  was  overrun  with — 

"  a  various  rout 
Of  petulant  capricious  sects, 
The  maggots  of  corrupted  texts" — 

but  they  bred  in  the  army  ;  and  this  license  of 
things  spiritual  led  by  a  sure  process  to  the  wild- 
est notions  of  political  liberty,  to  which  also  the 
constitution  of  the  army  was  favorable  :  a  merce- 
nary army,  HoUis  calls  it,  "  all  of  them,  from  the 
general  (except  what  he  may  have  in  expectation 
after  his  father's  death)  to  the  meanest  sentinel^ 
not  able  to  make  a  thousand  pounds  a  year  lands, 
most  of  the  colonels  and  officers,  mean  tradesmen, 
brewers,  tailors,  goldsmiths,  shoemakers,  and  the 
like — a  notable  dunghill,  if  one  would  rake  into  it 
to  find  out  their  several  pedigrees."  According  to 
him,  these  "  bloodsuckers  had  conceived  a  mortal 
hatred"  against  his  party,  "  and,  in  truth,  against 
all  gentlemen,  as  those  who  had  too  great  an  in- 
terest and  too  large  a  stake  of  their  own  in  the 
kingdom,  to  engage  with  them  in  their  design  of 
perpetuating  the  war  to  an  absolute  confusion." 
It  was  by  such  instruments  that  Cromwell  had 
made  himself,  ostensibly  the  second  person  in  the 
10 


110  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

army,  really  the  first :  but  he  was  not  yet  theit 
master,  and  was  compelled  to  court  them  still  by 
professing  a  fellowship  in  opinions  which  he  had 
ceased  to  hold.  Had  he  espoused  the  king's 
cause  heartily  and  honestly,  which  probably  he 
desired  to  do,  the  very  men  upon  whom  his  power 
rested  would  have  turned  against  him,  and  have 
pursued  him  with  as  murderous  a  hatred  as  that 
which  Pym  had  avowed  against  Strafford,  and  had 
gratified  in  his  blood.  Both  in  and  out  of  the 
army  he  needed  the  co-operation  of  men  some  of 
whom  were  his  equals  in  cunning,  others  in  au- 
dacity :  Yane  and  perhaps  St.  John  were  as  crafty  ; 
Ludlow,  Hazlerigg,  and  many  others,  were  as  bold. 
But  these  men  were  bent  upon  trying  the  experi- 
ment of  a  republic,  to  which  the  king's  destruc- 
tion was  a  necessary  prelude.  And  he  who  after- 
ward controlled  three  nations,  is  said  himself  to 
have  stood  in  some  awe  of  his  son-in-law  Ireton, 
a  man  of  great  talents  and  inflexible  character, 
and  sincere  in  those  political  opinions  which 
Cromwell  held  only  while  they  were  instrumental 
to  his  advancement. 

Ludlow,  who  knew  Ireton  well,  and  was  the 
more  likely  to  understand  the  motives  of  his  con- 
duct, because  he  entirely  coincided  with  him  in  his 
political  desires,  believed  that  it  was  never  his 
intention  to  come  to  any  agreement  with  the  king, 
but  only  to  delude  the  loyalists  while  the  army 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  Ill 

were  contesting  with  the  presbyterian  interest  in 
parliament :  and  he  relates  that  Ireton  once  said 
to  the  king,  '^  Sir,  you  have  an  intention  to  be  ar- 
bitrator between  the  parliament  and  us,  and  we 
mean  to  be  so  between  you  and  the  parliament." 
Cromwell,  on  the  other  hand,  is  said  to  have  de- 
clared that  the  interview  between  Charles  and  his 
children,  when  they  were  first  allowed  to  visit 
him,  was  "  the  tenderest  sight  that  ever  his  eyes 
beheld ;"  to  have  wept  plentifully  when  he  spoke 
of  it  (which  he  might  well  have  done  without  hy- 
pocrisy, for  in  private  life  he  was  a  man  of  kind 
feelings  and  of  a  generous  nature) ;  to  have  con- 
fessed that  "  never  man  was  so  abused  as  he  in 
his  sinister  opinion  of  the  king,  who,  he  thought, 
was  the  most  upright  and  conscientious  of  his 
kingdom  ;"  and  to  have  imprecated  that  "  God 
would  be  pleased  to  look  upon  him  according  to 
the  sincerity  of  his  heart  toward  the  king."  There 
are  men  so  habitually  insincere  that  they  seem  to 
delight  in  acts  of  gratuitous  duplicity,  as  if  thfiir 
vanity  was  gratified  by  the  easy  triumph  over  those 
who  are  too  upright  to  suspect  deceit.  Cromwell 
was  a  hypocrite,  then,  only  when  hypocrisy  was 
useful ;  there  are  anecdotes  enough  which  prove 
that  he  was  well  pleased  when  he  could  lay  aside 
the  mask.  In  his  conduct  toward  Charles,  while 
that  poor  persecuted  king  was  with  the  army, 
there  is  no  reason  to  suspect  him  of  any  sinister 


112  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

intention  ;  the  most  probable  solution  is  that  also 
which  is  most  creditable  to  him,  and  which  is  im- 
puted to  him  by  those  persons  who  aspersed  him 
most.  Hollis  and  Ludlow,  who  hated  him  with 
as  much  inveteracy  as  if  they  had  not  equally 
hated  each  other,  agree  in  believing  that  he  would 
willingly  have  taken  part  with  the  king  ;  and  that 
he  was  deterred  from  this  better  course  by  the 
fear  that  the  army  would  desert  him.  They  agree 
also  that  when  he  was  certain  of  this,  he,  by  ta- 
king measures  for  alarming  the  king,  instigated 
him  to  make  his  escape  from  Hampton  Court 
(November  11,  1647).  Concerning  his  further* 
purpose,  there  are  different  opinions.  Hollis,  who 
would  allow  him  no  merit,  supposes  that  he  di- 
rected him  to  Carisbrook  because  he  knew  that 
Hammond  might  be  depended  upon  as  a  jailer : 
Ludlow  supposes  that  he  thought  Hammond  a  man 
on  whom  the  king  might  rely  ;  and  Hobbes,  with 

*  One  of  the  very  few  errors  which  M.  Villemain  has  com- 
mitted is  that  of  saying  that  Ashburnham  is  charged  by  Clar- 
endon with  having  betrayed  his  master  on  this  occasion; 
whereas  Clarendon,  though  he  perceived  with  what  fatal  and 
unaccountable,  mismanagement  they  proceeded,  entirely  ac- 
quits him  of  any  intention  to  mislead  the  king.  M.  Villemain 
writes  New  York  for  Newark— from  a  mistaken  etymology, 
we  suppose.  These  trifling  mistakes  are  pointed  out  for  cor- 
rection, not  from  the  desire  of  detecting  faults,  but  in  respect 
for  a  work  of  great  sagacity,  perfect  candor,  and  exemplary 
diligence— being  by  far  the  most  able  history  of  Cromwell 
that  has  yet  been  written. 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  113 

more  probability  than  either,  affirms  that  he  meant 
to  let  him  escape  from  the  kingdom,  which,  with 
common  prudence  on  the  part  of  his  companions, 
he  might  have  done,  and  which,  when  Cromwell 
had  made  his  choice  to  act  with  the  common- 
wealth's-men,  would  have  served  their  purpose 
better  than  his  death. 

He  did  not,  however,  join  them  hastily,  not 
from  his  own  feelings,  but  as  if  yielding,  rather 
than  consenting,  to  circumstances.  Conferences 
were  held  between  some  of  the  heads  of  the  many- 
headed  anarchy — members,  officers,  and  preachers 
— to  determine  what  form  of  government  was  best 
for  the  nation,  whether  monarchical,  aristocratical, 
or  democratical.  The  ablest  leaders  of  the  pres- 
byterian  party  had  been  expelled  the  house,  and 
some  of  them  driven  into  exile  by  the  prepondera- 
ting influence  of  the  army,  who  availed  themselves 
of  the  king's  presence  to  obtain  that  object.  These 
persons,  more  from  their  hatred  of  the  indepen- 
dents than  from  any  other  principle,  would  have 
defended  the  monarchy,  which  was  now  but 
weakly  and  insincerely  defended  by  Cromwell 
and  those  who  were  called  the  grandees  of  the 
house  and  army.  Either  form  of  government,  they 
said,  might  be  good  in  itself,  and  for  them,  as 
Providence  should  direct ;  this  being  interpreted 
meant  that  they  were  ready  to  support  any  form 
which  might  be  most  advantageous  to  themselves. 
10* 


114  LIFE   OF   CROMWELL. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  political  and  religious 
zealots  insisted  that  monarchy  was  in  itself  an 
evil,  and  that  the  Jews  had  committed  a  great  sin 
against  the  Lord  in  choosing  it ;  and  they,  ap- 
parently now  for  the  first  time,  avowed  their  desire 
of  putting  the  king  to  death  and  establishing  an 
equal  commonwealth.  Cromwell,  who  was  then 
acknowledged  as  the  head  of  the  grandees,  pro- 
fessed himself  to  be  unresolved ;  he  had  learned 
however  the  temper  of  his  tools,  and  with  that 
coarse  levity  which  is  one  of  the  strongest  features 
in  his  character,  he  concluded  the  conference  by 
flinging  a  cushion  at  Ludlow's  head,  and  then 
running  down  stairs  ;  but  not  fast  enough  to  escape 
a  similar  missile  which  was  sent  after  him.  The 
next  day  he  told  Ludlow  he  was  convinced  of  the 
desirableness  of  what  that  party  had  proposed, 
but  not  of  its  feasibleness.  The  time  was  now 
fast  approaching  when  Cromwell  could  find  every- 
thing feasible  which  he  desired.  A  bold  accusa- 
tion was  preferred  against  him  in  the  house  of 
lords  by  Major  Huntington  :  he  affirmed  that  Crom- 
well and  Ireton  had,  from  the  beginning,  instigated 
the  army  to  disobey  and  resist  the  parliament ; 
that  they  had  pledged  themselves  to  make  the 
king  the  most  glorious  prince  in  Christendom, 
while  they  were  making  use  of  him,  and  had  de- 
clared that  they  were  ready  to  join  with  French, 
Spaniards,  Cavaliers,  or  any  who  would  force  the 
5 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  tl§ 

parliament  to  agree  with  him  ;  that  their  real  ob- 
ject was  to  perpetuate  the  power  of  the  army ; 
that  Ireton  said,  when  the  king  and  parliament 
were  treating,  he  hoped  they  would  make  such  a 
peace  that  the  army  might,  with  a  good  conscience, 
light  against  them  both ;  and  that  Cromwell  had, 
both  in  public  and  private,  maintained  as  his  princi- 
ple that  every  individual  was  judge  of  just  and 
right  as  to  the  good  and  ill  of  a  kingdom ;  that  it 
was  lawful  to  pass  through  any  forms  of  govern- 
ment for  attaining  his  end,  and  that  it  was  lawful 
to  play  the  knave  with  a  knave.  Huntington  swore 
to  the  truth  of  these  allegations  ;  iMilton  impugns 
his  credit,  by  saying  that  he  afterward  besought 
Cromwell's  pardon,  and  confessed  that  he  had  been 
suborned  by  the  presbyterians.  Encouraged  by 
them  he  probably  was  ;  but  Huntington's  memorial 
bears  with  it  the  stamp  of  truth,  and  it  is  confirmed 
by  Cromwell's  whole  course  of  after-life.* 

The  independent  party  being  the  strongest,  no 
advantage  was  made  of  these  charges,  which 
might  otherwise  have  been  deemed  ground  suf- 
ficent  for  depriving  him  of  his  command  ;  and  the 
ill-planned  and  ill-combined  insurrection  of  the 
Cavaliers  and  invasion  of  the  Scotch  made  him, 
as  M.  Yillemain  observes,  too  necessary  to  be 

[*  Huntington's  Complaint,  dated  2d  Aug.,  1648,  is  printed 
in  Thurloe's  state  papers,  vol.  i.,  pp.  94-97,  and  in  vol.  ii., 
of  Maseres' tracts.] 


116  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

deemed  culpable.  He  marched  first  into  Wales, 
and  brought  that  crabbed  expedition,  as  it  was 
called,  to  a  successful  termination  with  his  wonted 
celerity.  That  done,  he  proceeded  against  the 
Scotch,  which,  to  the  great  furtherance  of  Crom- 
well's designs,  Fairfax  was  not  willing  to  do,  for 
Fairfax  had  a  sort  of  pyebald  presbyterian  con- 
science, and  strained  at  a  gnat  now,  after  having 
bolted  so  many  camels.  Cromwell  had  a  great 
dislike  of  the  Scotch  as  well  as  a  great  contempt 
for  them ;  he  perfectly  understood  what  their 
armies  were,  having  served  with  them  in  one 
campaign,  and  therefore  readily  consented  to  go 
against  them  with  a  very  inferior  force.  That 
confidence  might  have  been  fatal  to  him,  if  there 
had  been  common  prudence  in  the  duke  of  Hamil- 
ton and  the  other  Scotch  leaders ;  but  the  miser- 
able creatures  by  whom  the  counsels  of  that  army 
were  directed  chose  to  expose  the  English  who 
were  with  them,  instead  of  supporting  them,  when, 
by  timely  aid,  the  day  might  have  been  won. 
Cromwell  declared  he  had  never  seen  foot  fight  so 
desperately  as  the  north-countrymen  under  Sir 
Marmaduke  Langdale,  at  the  battle  of  Preston, 
where  they  were  so  basely  left  without  support 
They  had  their  reward.  Cromwell  followed  theii 
army,  defeated  and  routed  it,  more  being  killed  out 
of  contempt,  says  Clarendon,  than  that  they  de- 
served it  by  any  opposition.     He  then  marched  to 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  117 

Edinburgh,  where  he  was  received  as  a  deliverer  ; 
and  settling  the  affairs  of  that  lawless  country 
under  the  management  of  Argyll,  left  it  with  reason 
to  believe  that  it  would  prove  as  peaceable  as  he 
could  wish. 

The  part  which  Cromwell  bore  in  the  tragedy 
that  ensued,  and  the  manner  in  which  the  hypoc- 
risy, the  coarseness,  and  the  levity  of  his  charac- 
ter were  displayed,  when,  not  having  felt  power 
or  courage  to  prevent  the  wickedness,  he  took  the 
lead  in  it  himself,  are  known  to  all  persons  who 
have  any  knowledge  of  English  history.  The 
powers  of  Europe  had  most  of  them  secretly 
fomented  the  rebellion,  and  made  no  attempt  to 
avert  the  catastrophe  which  it  brought  about. 
France  more  especially  had  acted  treacherously 
toward  the  king ;  commenting  upon  which,  in  the 
earlier  part  of  his  history.  Lord  Clarendon  has 
some  memorable  observations  upon  the  impolicy 
as  well  as  the  injustice  of  such  conduct,  "  as  if," 
he  says,  "  the  religion  of  princes  were  nothing  but 
policy,  and  that  they  considered  nothing  more  than 
to  make  all  other  kingdoms  but  their  own  miser- 
able ;  and  because  God  hath  reserved  them  to  be 
tried  only  within  his  own  jurisdiction,  that  he 
means  to  try  them  too  by  other  laws  and  rules  than 
he  hath  published  to  the  world  for  his  servants  to 
walk  by.  Whereas  they  ought  to  consider  that 
God  hath  placed  them  over  his  people  as  examples, 


118  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

and  to  give  countenance  to  his  laws  by  their  own 
strict  observation  of  them  ;  and  that  as  their  sub- 
jects are  to  be  defended  and  protected  by  their 
princes,  so  they  themselves  are  to  be  assisted  and 
supported  by  one  another,  the  function  of  kings 
being  an  order  by  itself ;  and  as  a  contempt  and 
breach  of  every  law  is  in  the  policy  of  state  an 
offence  against  the  person  of  the  king,  because 
there  is  a  kind  of  violation  offered  to  his  person 
in  the  transgression  of  that  rule,  without  which  he 
can  not  govern  ;  so  the  rebellion  of  subjects  against 
their  prince  ought  to  be  looked  upon  by  all  other 
kings  as  an  assault  of  their  own  sovereignty,  and 
in  some  degree  a  design  against  monarchy  itself, 
and  consequently  to  be  suppressed  and  extirpated, 
in  what  other  kingdom  soever  it  is,  with  the  like 
concernment  as  if  it  were  in  their  own  bowels." 
Lord  Bacon  has  noticed  it  as  a  defect  in  the  his- 
torical part  of  learning  that  there  is  not  an  im- 
partial and  well  attested  Historia  Nemesios,  In 
such  a  history  the  miseries  which  France  has  un- 
dergone, and  which  Spain  is  undergoing  and  is  to 
undergo,  would  exemplify  the  justice  of  Claren- 
don's remarks. 

While  other  governments  beheld  the  fate  of 
Charles  with  an  indifference  as  disreputable  to 
their  feelings  as  to  their  policy,  and  while  the 
king  of  Spain  adorned  his  palace  by  purchasing 
the  choicest  speciments  of  art  with  which  Charles 


LIFE    OF    CRt)MWELL.  119 

had  enriched  England,  an  honorable  exception  is 
to  be  made  for  Portugal  and  the  house  of  Braganza. 
That  house,  in  a  time  of  extreme  difficulty  and 
danger,  when  it  could  ill  afford  to  provoke  another 
enemy,  chose  rather  to  incur  the  resentment  and 
vengeance  of  the  English  commonwealth,  than  to 
refuse  protection  to  Prince  Rupert  and  the  ships 
under  his  command  ;  and  when  the  parliamentary 
fleet  entered  the  Tagus,  and  denounced  war  unless 
they  were  instantly  delivered  up,  it  was  with  dif- 
ficulty that  Prince  Theodosius  (whose  untimely 
death  may,  perhaps,  be  considered  as  the  greatest 
misfortune  that  ever  befell  the  Portuguese)  was 
dissuaded  from  going  on  board  the  Portuguese 
fleet  himself,  to  join  Prince  Rupert,  and  give  battle 
to  his  enemies.  On  that  occasion  the  Braganzan 
family  considered  what  was  right  and  honorable, 
regardless  of  all  meaner  considerations  ;  they  sup- 
plied Rupert  fully,  and  would  not  suffer  his  pur- 
suers to  leave  the  port  till  two  tides  after  he  had 
sailed  out  with  a  full  gale.  They  suffered  severely 
for  this,  but  they  preserved  their  honor  ;  and  as  it 
behooves  us  not  to  forget  this,  so  does  it  at  this 
time  especially  behoove  the  Portuguese  to  remem- 
ber in  what  manner  the  constant  alliance  and 
friendship  of  England,  which  for  more  than  a 
hundred  and  sixty  years  has  never  been  inter- 
rupted, was  then  deserved. 

The  levity  which   Cromwell  displayed  during 


120  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

that  mockery  of  justice  with  which  the  king  was 
sacrificed,  Mr.  Noble  supposes  to  have  been  af- 
fected :  and  Mr.  O.  Cromwell  endeavors  to  inval- 
idate the  evidence  upon  which  it  has  been  record- 
ed and  hitherto  received.  Its  truth  or  falsehood 
would  matter  little  in  the  fair  estimate  of  his  whole 
conduct,  or  of  that  particular  act ;  and  the  thing 
itself  is  too  consistent  with  other  authentic  anec- 
dotes concerning  him  to  be  arbitrarily  set  aside. 
It  is  more  remarkable  that  he  went  to  look  at  the 
murdered  king,  opened  the  coffin  himself,  put  his 
finger  to  the  neck  where  it  had  been  severed, 
and  even  inspecting  the  inside  of  the  body,  ob- 
served in  how  healthy  a  state  it  had  been,  and  how 
well  made  fojr  length  of  life.  He  had  screwed  his 
feelings  as  well  as  his  conscience  at  this  time  to 
the  sticking-place,  and  seems  as  if  he  had  been 
resolved  to  make  it  known  that  he  would  shrink 
from  nothing  which  might  be  necessary  for  his 
views.  This  was  shown  in  the  case  of  Lord  Ca- 
pel,  a  man  in  all  respects  of  exemplary  virtue,  and 
worthy  of  the  highest  honors  that  history  can  be- 
stow, as  one  who  performed  his  duly  faithfully,  and 
to  the  last,  in  the  worst  of  times.  Cromwell  knew 
him  personally,  spoke  of  him  as  of  a  friend,  and 
made  his  very  virtues  a  reason  for  taking  away  his 
life  !  His  affection  to  the  public,  he  said,  so  much 
weighed  down  his  private  friendship,  that  he  could 
not  but  tell  the  house  the  question  was  whether 


I  III  Y  u^  w  I  i 

Afwrn$6stii»- ''  * 
placable  enemy ;  he  knew  the  Lord  Capel  Yery 
well,  and  knew  that  he  would  be  the  last  man  in 
England  who  would  forsake  the  royal  interest ;  that 
he  had  great  courage,  industry,  and  generosity ; 
that  he  had  many  friends  who  would  always  ad- 
here to  him ;  and  that  as  long  as  he  lived,  what 
condition  soever  he  was  in,  he  would  be  a  thorn 
in  their  sides  ;  and  therefore,  for  the  good  of  the 
commonwealth,  he  should  vote  for  his  death.  This 
was  delivered  and  heard  as  a  proof  of  republican 
virtue.  God  deliver  us  from  all  such  virtues  as 
harden  the  heart ! 

Hobbes  has  affirmed  that  at  the  time  of  Lord  Ca- 
pel's  execution  it  was  put  to  the  question  by  the 
army,  whether  all  who  ha,d  borne  arms  for  the  X^^" 
king  should  be  massacred  or  no,  and  the  noes  car- 
ried it  by  only  two  voices.*  If  this  be  true,  Crom- 
well, we  may  be  sure,  was  one  of  those  who  de- 
clared against  it ;  when  he  shed  blood  it  was  up- 
on a  calculating  policy,  never  for  the  appetite  of 
blood :  such  acts  were  committed  by  him  against 
a  good  nature,  not  in  the  indulgence  of  a  depraved 
one.  Nor  were  the  royalists  the  party  of  whom 
he  was  at  that  time  most  apprehensive  ;  they  were 
broken  and  dispersed,  their  cause  was  abandoned 
by  man,  and  the  pulpit  incendiaries  preached,  and 
perhaps  persuaded  both  themselves  and  others, 
[*  Arthur,  Lord  Capel,  was  executed  9th  March,  1648.] 
11 


122  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

that  God  had  declared  against  it.  Tte -P^^^s^'^^ 
V^  dangor  was  from  the  levellers,  whom  Cromwell 
had  at  first  encouraged,  and  with  whom  it  is  very 
possible  that  in  one  stage  of  his  progress  he  may 
sincerely  have  sympathized.  Rut  being  now  bet- 
ter acquainted  with  men  and  with  things,  his  wish 
was  to  build  up  and  repair  the  work  of  ruin  ;  all 
further  demolition  was  to  be  prevented,  and  there- 
fore by  prompt  severity  he  suppressed  these  men, 
who  were  so  numerous  and  well  organized  as  to 
have  rendered  themselves  formidable  by  their 
^  strength  as  well  as  by  their  opinions.  That  ob- 
ject having  been  effected,  he  accepted  the  com- 
mand in  Ireland,  to  the  surprise  of  his  enemies, 
who  desired  nothing  so  much  as  his  absence  ;  not 
having  considered  that  with  his  means  and  tem- 
per he  went  to  a  sure  conquest,  and  must  needs 
return  from  it  with  a  great  accession  of  popularity 
,.-and  power. 

He  arrived  at  Dublin  [15th  Aug.,  1649]  in  a  for- 
tunate hour,  just  after  the  garrison  had  obtained  a 
signal  victory,  in  consequence  of  which  the  siege 
had  been  broken  up.  Without  delay  he  marched 
V  against  Urogheda,*  where  the  Marquis  of  Ormond 
had  placed  a  great  number  of  his  best  troops,  un- 
der Sir  Arthur  Aston,  a  brave  and  distinguished 

[*  3d  5ejpt.Jj649.  He  began  his  attack  on  the  9th.  The 
battles  of  Dunbar  and  Worcester  weie  fought  on  the  3d  of 
September.  He  summoned  a  parliament  on  the  3d  of  Sep- 
tember, andlie  died  on  the  3d  of  September.] 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  123 

officer.  One  assault  was  manfully  repulsed.  Crom- 
well led  his  men  a  second  time  to  the  breach,  who 
then  forced  all  the  retrenchments,  and  gave  no 
quarter  according  to  his  positive  orders.  There 
was  a  great  contention  among  the  soldiers  who 
should  get  the  governor  for  his  share  of  the  spoil, 
because  his  artificial  leg  was  believed  to  be  made 
of  gold ;  the  disappointment  at  finding  it  only  of 
wood  was  somewhat  abated  by  discovering  two 
hundred  pieces  of  gold  sewn  up  in  his  girdle. 
Cromwell's  own  account  of  the  slaughter  is,  that 
not  thirty  of  the  whole  number  of  the  defendants 
escaped  with  their  lives.  "  I  do  not  believe," 
he  says,  "  neither  do  I  hear,  that  any  officer  es- 
caped  with  his  life,  save  only  one  lieutenant,  who, 
going  to  the  enemy,  said  he  was  the  only  man  that 
escaped  of  all  the  garrison.  The  enemy  were 
filled  upon  this  with  much  terror,  and  truly  I  be- 
lieve this  bitterness  will  save  much  effusion  of 
blood,  through  the  goodness  of  God.  I  wish  that 
all  honest  hearts  may  give  the  glory  of  this  to  God 
alone,  to  whom,  indeed,  the  praise  of  this  mercy 
belongs,  for  instruments  they  were  very  inconsid- 
erable the  wprk  throughout."  tiord  Clarendon 
says  that  all  manner  of  cruelty  was  executed  ;  ev- 
ery Irish  inhabitant,  man,  woman,  and  child,  put 
to  the  sword,  and  three  or  four  officers  of  name 
and  of  good  families,  whom  some  humaner  soldiers 
concealed  for  four  or  five  days,  were  then  butcher- 


124  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

P^ed  in  cold  blood.  Jiudlow^ relates  that  the  slaugh- 
ter continued  two  days,  and  that  such  extraordina- 
ry severity  was  used  to  discourage  others.  Hugh 
Peters  gave  thanks  for  it  in  the  cathedral  at  Dub- 

^  4^  lin.  The  object  was  attained.  Xrirp  and  Dundalk 
were  abandoned  to  him  without  resistance  ;  Wex- 

l^  Jiatd  was  ill  defended  and  easily  taken ;  and  Crom- 
well, with  a  reliance  upon  fortune  arising,  in  this 
instance,  equally  from  confidence  in  himself  and 

y-     contempt  of  his  enemies,  marched  into  Munster^ 
so  far  from  all  succor  and  all  reasonable  hope  of 

y  supplies,  that  if  the  city  of  Cork  had  not  been 
treacherously  or  pusillanimously  given  up  to  him, 
he  and  his  army  must  have  been  reduced  to  the 
utmost  danger. 

In  less  than  six  months,  though  an  infectious 
disease  had  broken  out  in  his  own  army,  Crom- 
well destroyed  the  last  hopes  of  the  royalists  in 
Ireland,  and  exacted  for  a  national  crime,  to  which 
the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew's  day  is  the  on- 
ly parallel  in  history,  a  vengeance  to  which  no 
parallel  can  be  found.  No  mercy  was  shown  to 
any  person  who  could  be  convicted  of  having 
shed  protestant  blood  in  that  most  merciless  and 
atrocious  rebellion.  As  many  others  as  chose 
were  allowed  to  enter  into  foreign  services,  and 
French  and  Spanish  officers  enlisted  and  trans- 
ported not  less  than  five  and  forty  thousand  men, 
though  not  five  thousand  could  ever  be  raised  for 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  125 

the  king's  service  by  all  the  unwearied  exertions 
of  Ormond,  and  all  the  promises  and  contracts 
which  were  made  with  him.  Leaving  Ireton  with 
the  command,*  to  pursue  the  war  upon  that  sys- 
tem of  extermination  which  the  commonwealth 
intended,  he  obeyed  the  summons  of  parliament 
to  put  himself  at  the  head  of  an  army  which  was 
to  march  against  Charles  II.,  called  at  that  time 
Charles  Stuart,  who  was  then  in  Scotland,  in  a 
situation  something  between  that  of  a  king  and  a 
prisoner.  By  Cromwell's  desire  the  command 
was  offered  to  Fairfax,  who  refused  it,  more  be- 
cause he  was  offended  and  ashamed  at  having  dis- 
covered how  mere  a  cipher  he  was  become,  than 
from  any  feeling  of  repentance  for  what  he  had 
done,  and  for  what  he  had  omitted  to  do,  which 
was  the  heavier  sin.  In  urging  him  to  accept  the 
command,  Cromwell  appeared  so  much  in  earnest 
that  Ludlow  believed  him,  and  took  him  aside  to 
entreat  that  he  would  not  in  compliment  and  hu- 
mility obstruct  the  service  of  the  nation  by  his  re- 
fusal. When  it  was  determined  that  Cromwell 
was  to  be  general,  Ludlow  had  a  conference  with 
him,  in  which  Cromwell  professed  to  desire  noth- 
ing more  than  that  the  government  might  be  settled 
in  a  free  and  equal  commonwealth,  which  he 
thought  the  only  probable  means  of  keeping  out 

[*  May,  1650.    He  arrived  in  London  on  the  31st.    Whit 
lock,  p.457,  ed.  1732.] 

11* 


A 


126  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

the  old  family.  He  looked  upon  it,  he  said,  that 
the  design  of  the  Lord  was  now  to  free  his  people 
from  every  burden,  and  to  accomplish  what  was 
prophesied  in  the  110th  Psalm  ;  and  then  expound- 
ing that  psalm  for  about  an  hour  to  Ludlow,  and 
tickling  him  with  expositions,  professions,  and 
praises,  ended  by  letting  him  understand  that  if 
he  pleased  to  accept  the  command  of  the  horse  in 
Ireland,  the  post  would  be  at  his  service.* 

A  declaration  was  sent  before  Cromwell's  army, 
addressed  "  to  all  that  are  saints,  and  partakers  of 
the  faith  of  God's  elect  in  Scotland."  The  saints, 
however,  in  Scotland  were  praying  and  preaching 
against  Cromwell  as  heartily  as  they  had  ever  per- 
formed pulpit-service  against  Charles  ;  and  their 
presbyterian  brethren  in  England,  as  well  as  the 
sober  and  untainted  part  of  the  people,  were  heart- 
ily wishing  for  his  overthrow,  and  the  return  of 
the  ancient  order.  His  contempt  for  the  Scotch 
had  very  nearly  brought  about  the  fulfilment  of 
;heir  desires  :  he  got  himself  into  a  situation  at 
Dunbar  from  which  it  was  impossible  to  retreat, 
and  where,  from  the  want  of  provisions,  the  enemy 
must  have  had  him  at  their  mercy  if  they  would 
only  have  avoided  an  action.  But  it  was  revealed 
to  the  preachers,  by  whom  the  general  was  con- 
trolled, that  Agag  was  delivered  into  their  hands ; 
and  Cromwell,  perceiving  them  through  his  glass 
[*  Ludlow's  Memoirs,  ed.  1771,  pp.  136-'7.] 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  127 

advancing  to  attack,  exclaimed  (in  Hume's  felicit- 
ous language)  without  the  help  of  revelations,  that 
the  Lord  had  delivered  them  into  his.  Some  of 
the  preachers  were  knocked  on  the  head  while 
promising  the  victory,  and  others  who  were  not 
killed  "  had  very  notable  marks  about  the  head  and 
the  face,  that  anybody  might  know,  they  were  not 
hurt  by  chance,  or  in  the  crowd,  but  by  very  good 
will."  A  terrible  execution  was  made  ;  Crom- 
well's men  gave  no  quarter  till  they  were  weary 
of  killing.  In  his  letter  to  the  parliament  he  ac- 
knowledged the  peril  in  which  he  had  been,  and 
that  the  enemy  had  reminded  him  of  the  fate  of 
Essex's  army  in  Cornwall ;  "  but,"  says  he,  '*  in 
what  they  were  thus  lifted  up,  the  Lord  was  above 
them.  The  enemy  having  those  advantages,  we 
lay  very  near  him,  being  sensible  of  our  disadvan- 
tages, having  some  weakness  of  flesh,  but  yet  con- 
solation and  support  from  the  Lord  himself  to  our 
poor  weak  faith  (wherein  I  believe  not  a  few 
among  us  stand),  that  because  of  their  numbers, 
because  of  their  advantages,  because  of  their  con- 
fidence, because  of  our  weakness,  because  of  our 
strait,  we  were  on  the  mount,  and  on  the  mount 
the  Lord  would  be  seen."  And  he  adds  that  the 
Lord  of  hosts  made  them  as  stubble  to  their  swords. 
The  battle  of  Dunbar  (3d  SepL,  1650)  delivered 
Charles  from  the  tyranny  of  the  presbyterians, 
who,  he  verily  believed,  would  have  imprisoned 


k 


128  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

him  the  next  day  if  they  had  won  the  victory. 

t^        Cromwell  entered  Edinburgh  :  the  castle  was  sur- 
rendered to  him,  and  he  was  soon  master  of  the 
.better  part  of  the  kingdom;  but  he  had  a  severe 

y^  illness,  with  three  relapses,  and  was  in  great  dan- 
ger. His  reply,  after  his  recovery,  to  a  letter  of 
inquiry  from  the  lord  president  of  the  council  of  state 
in  England,  acknowledged,  with  all  humble  thank- 
fulness, their  high  favor  in  sending  to  inquire  after 
one  so  unworthy  as  himself.  "  Indeed,  my 
lord,"  he  continues,  "  your  service  needs  not  me  ; 
I  am  a  poor  creature,  and  have  been  a  dry  bone, 
and  am  still  an  unprofitable  servant  to  my  Master 
and  you.  I  thought  I  should  have  died  of  this  fit 
of  sickness,  but  the  Lord  seemethto  dispose  other- 
wise. But  truly,  my  lord,  I  desire  not  to  live  un- 
less I  may  obtain  mercy  from  the  Lord,  to  approve 
my  heart  and  life  to  him  in  more  faithfulness  and 
thankfulness,  and  those  I  serve  with  more  profit- 
ableness and  diligence."  When  he  was  well 
enough  to  take  the  field,  and  advance  against  the 
;^  king  at  Stirling,  a  skilful  movement,  by  which  he 
got  behind  the  royal  army,  thereby  cutting  it  off 
from  the  fruitful  country  whence  it  drew  its  sup- 
|.  plies,  induced  Charles  to  form  the  brave  resolu- 
tion of  marching  into  England. 

Cromwell  had  not  expected  this ;  and  when  he 
announced  it  to  the  parliament,  it  was  with  some- 
thing like  an  apology  for  himself,  though  he  said 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  1^9 

the  enemy  had  taken  this  course  in  desperation 
and  fear,  and  out  of  inevitable  necessity.  "  1  do 
apprehend,"  he  says,  "  that  it  will  trouble  some 
men's  thoughts,  and  may  occasion  some  incon- 
veniences, of  which  I  hope  we  are  as  deeply  sen- 
sible, and  have,  and  I  trust  shall  be  as  diligent  to 
prevent  as  any.  And  indeed  this  is  our  comfort, 
that  in  simplicity  of  heart  as  to  God,  we  have  done 
to  the  best  of  our  judgments,  knowing  that  if  some 
issue  were  not  put  to  this  business,  it  would  occa- 
sion another  winter'*  war,  to  the  ruin  of  your 
soldiery,  for  whom  the  Scots  are  too  hard,  in  re- 
spect of  enduring  the  winter  difficulties  of  this 
country.  We  have  this  comfortable  experiment 
from  the  Lord,  that  this  enemy  is  heart-smitten  by 
God  ,  and  whenever  the  Lord  shall  bring  us  up  to 
them,  we  believe  the  Lord  will  make  the  despe- 
rateness  of  this  counsel  of  theirs  to  appear,  and 
the  folly  of  it  also."  The  alarm  in  London  was 
very  great.  "  Both  the  city  and  the  country," 
says  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  "  were  all  amazed,  doubt- 
ful of  their  own  and  the  commonwealth's  safety. 
Some  could  not  hide  very  pale  and  unmanly  fears, 
and  were  in  such  distraction  of  spirit  as  much  dis- 
turbed their  councils."  Even  Bradshaw,  "  stout- 
hearted as  he  was,"  trembled  for  his  neck.  But 
great  exertions  were  made  by  the  government,  its 
members  having  indeed  everything  at  stake,  and 
Whitelock  says  that  no  "  affair  could  have  been 


\y 


130  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

managed  with  more  diligence,  courage,  and  pru- 
dence ;  and  that  peradventure  there  was  never  so 
great  a  body  of  men,  so  well  armed  and  provided, 
got  together  in  so  short  a  time,  as  were  those  sent 
to  reinforce  Cromwell."  Cromwell  meantime 
followed  the  royal  army  with  his  wonted  confi- 
dence. Whatever  his  military  skill  may  have 
been,  he  possessed  in  perfection  two  of  the  first 
requisites  for  a  general,  activity  and  decision ; 
while  in  the  king's  councils  he  knew  that  there 
would  be  conflicting  opinions,  vacillations,  delay, 
and  imbecility.  When  therefore  he  came  to  Wnr^.  j 
cester,  advantageous  as  that  position  was  to  the 
enemy  if  they  had  known  how  to  profit  by  it,  he 
marched  directly  on  as  to  a  prey ;  and  not  troubling 
himself  with  the  formality  of  a  siege,  ordered  his 
troops  to  fall  on  in  all  places  at  once.  According  to 
his  own  account,  the  loss  on  his  side  did  not  exceed 
two  hundred  men  ;  yet  it  was,  he  said,  *'  a  stiff 
business," — "  as  stiff  a  contest  for  four  or  five  hours 
as  ever  he  had  seen.''  The  royal  army  was  com- 
pletely routed  and  dispersed ;  and  the  victory  was 
the  more  gratifying  to  Cromwell  on  account  of  its 
being  achieved  on  the  anniversary  of  the  battle  of 
Dunbar.  In  his  letter  to  the  parliament  he  says, 
"  the  dimensions  of  this  mercy  are  above  my 
thoughts  ;  it  is,  for  aught  I  know,  a  crowning 
mercy.  I  am  bold  humbly  to  beg  that  all  thoughts 
may  tend  to  the  promoting  of  his  honor  who  hath 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  131  ^ 

wrought  so  great  salvation  ;  and  that  the  fatness 
of  these  continued  mercies  may  not  occasion  pride 
and  wantonness,  as  formerly  the  like  hath  done  to 
a  chosen  nation."  y 

The  defeat  of  Charles  at  Worcester  (3d  Sept.,  ii/^ 
1651)  is  one  of  those  events  which  most  strikingly 
exemplify  how  much  better  events  are  disposed  of 
by  Providence  than  they  would  be  if  the  direction 
were  left  to  the  choice  even  of  the  best  and  the 
wisest  men.  Had  the  victory  been  on  the  king's 
side,  other  battles  must  have  been  fought ;  his  final 
success  could  not  have  been  attained  without  a 
severe  struggle  ;  a  second  contest  would  have 
arisen  among  his  own  friends,  between  the  mem- 
bers of  the  church  and  the  presbyterians,  which 
might  probably  have  kindled  another  civil  war ; 
and  the  puritans,  and  their  descendants  to  this 
day,  would  have  insisted  that  if  the  commonwealth 
had  not  been  overthrown,  the  continuance  of  that 
free  and  liberal  government  would  richly  have  re- 
paid the  country  for  all  its  sufferings.  But  by  the  7 
battle  of  Worcester,  the  commonwealth's  men  >  ^ 
were  left  absolute  masters  of  the  three  kingdoms  ;} 
they  had  full  leisure  to  complete  and  perfect  their 
own  structure  of  government :  the  experiment  was 
fairly  tried  ;  there  was  nothing  from  without  to 
disturb  the  process  ;  it  went  duly  on  from  change 
to  change,  from  one  evil  to  another ;  anarchy  in 
its  certain  consequences  leading  to  military  des- 


132  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

potism  ;  that  again,  when  the  sword  was  no  lon- 
ger wielded  by  a  strong  hand,  giving  place  to 
anarchy  ;  till  the  people,  at  length  weary  of  their 
sufferings  and  their  insecurity,  while  knaves  and 
fanatics  were  contending  for  the  mastery  over 
them,  restored  the  monarchy  with  one  consent. 

When  Cromwell  called  the  battle  of  Worcester 
a  crowning  mercy,  he  may  have  used  that  word  in 
(  a  double  sense  between  pun  and  prophecy  ;  for 
\certain  it  is  that  from  this  time  he  did  not  conceal 
"^hhe  kingly  thoughts  and  views  which  he  enter- 
tained.    He  would  have  knighted    Lambert  and 
TPleetwood  upon  the  field,  if  his  friends  had  not 
dissuaded  him  ;  and  soon  afterward,  when  Ireton's 
death  delivered  him  from  the  only  person  whom 
y     he  regarded  with  deference,  he  assembled  certain 
members  of  parliament,  with  some  of  the  chief 
officers,  at  the  speaker's  house,  told  them  it  was 
necessary  to  come  to  a  settlement  of  the  nation, 
and  delivered  his  own  opinion  in  favor  of  a  settle- 
ment with  somewhat  of  a  monarchical  power  in  it. 
The  lawyers  who  were  present  were  in  general 
for  a  mixed  monarchy  ;  and  many  were  for  choos- 
ing the  duke  of  Gloucester  king,  who  was  still  in 
their  hands,  and  was,  as  they  said,  too  young  to 
have  borne  arms  against  them,  or  to  be  infected 
u^  with  the  principles  of  their  enemies.     The  officers 
were  as  generally  against  monarchy,  though  every 
one  of  them,  says  Whitelock,  was  a  monarch  in 


V 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  133 

his  regiment  or  company.     For  the  present,  Crom-  ^ 
well  was  satisfied  with  having  felt  his  ground,  and     1 
waited  while  the  Long  parliament  made  themselves     i 
more  and  more  odious  by  the  desire  which  they     | 
manifested  of  perp'etuating  their  own  power,  the     \ 
war,  which  they  provoked  with  the  'Dutch,  and     V    {^ 
the    severities    which    they   exercised    by    their      / 
abominable  high  court  of  justice,  where  tools  of 
the  ruling  party,  who  had  no  character  to  lose, 
acted  at  once  as  judge  and  jury.     The  prisoners     i 
taken  at   Worcester  were    driven  like   cattle   to--^ 
London  ;  many  of  them  perished  there  in  confine- 
ment for  want  of  food,  and  the  rest  were  sold  to 
the  plantations  for  slaves  by  the  despotic  govern- 
ment which  had  risen  upon  the  ruins  of  the  throne !        ^ 
This  act  of  abominable  tyranny  is  mentioned  by 
Baxter   without    any    comment,    and    apparently 
without  the  slightest  feeling.     But  when  he  relates 
that  Mr.  Love,  one  of  the  London  ministers,  was 
condemned  and  beheaded  by  the  same  authority 
— then,  indeed,  heaven  and  earth  are   moved  at 
such  an  enormity  !     "  At  the  time  of  his  execution, 
or  very  near  it  on  that  day,  there  was  the  dread- 
fulest  thunder,  and  lightning,  and  tempest,  that  was 
heard  or  seen  for  a  long  time  before.     This  blow 
sunk  deeper  toward  the  root  of  the  new  common- 
wealth than  will  easily  be  believed,  and   made 
them  grow  odious  to  almost  all  the  religious  party 
in  the  land  except  the  sectaries.     And  there  is, 
12 


134  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

as  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  notethof  learned  men,  such 
as  Demosthenes,  Cicero,  &c.,  so  much  more  in 
divines  of  famous  learning  and  piety,  enough  to 
put  an  everlasting  odium  upon  those  whom  they 
suffer  by,  though  the  cause  of  the  sufferers  were 
not  justifiable.  Men  count  him  a  vile  and  detest- 
able creature,  who  in  his  passion,  or  for  his  interest, 
or  any  such  low  account,  shall  deprive  the  world 
of  such  lights  and  ornaments,  and  cut  off  so  much 
excellency  at  a  blow. — After  this  the  most  of  the 
ministers  and  good  people  of  the  land  did  look  upon 
the  new  commonwealth  as  tyranny." 

The   Long  parliament   having  made   itself  as 
much  hated  by  the  presbyterians  as  it  was  by  the 

^  ^  royalists,  was  odious  at  the  same  time  to  the  army 
I  and  the  fanatics  of  both  kinds,  political  and  re- 
V^  ligious.      Cromwell   stated   their   misconduct   to 

\/  ^hitelock  strongly,  and  with  none  of  that  muddi- 
ness  with  which  he  frequently  chose  to  conceal 
or  obscure  his  meaning.  On  this  occasion  he 
spoke  plainly  :  "  Their  pride,"  he  said,  *'  and  am- 
bition and  self-seeking,  engrossing  all  places  of 
honor  and  profit  to  themselves  and  their  friends  ; 
and  their  daily  breaking  forth  into  new  and  violent 
parties  and  factions  :  their  delays  of  business,  and 
design  to  perpetuate  themselves  and  to  continue 
their  power  in  their  own  hands  ;  their  meddling 
in  private  matters  between  party  and  party,  con- 
trary to  the  institution  of  parliaments,  and  their 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  135 

injustice  and  partiality  in  those  matters,  and  the 
scandalous  lives  of  some  of  the  chief  of  them — 
these  things  do  give  too  much  ground  for  people 
to  open  their  mouths  against  them  and  to  dislike 
them.  Nor  can  they  be  kept  within  the  bounds 
of  justice  and  law  or  reason,  they  themselves  be- 
ing the  supreme  power  of  the  nation,  liable  to  no 
account  to  any,  nor  to  be  controlled  or  regulated 
by  any  other  power  ;  there  being  none  superior  or 
co-ordinate  with  them."  Whitelock  confessed  the 
evil,  but  said  it  would  be  hard  to  find  a  remedy. 
"  What,"  said  Cromwell,  "  if  a  man  should  take 
upon  him  to  be  king  ?"  To  this  Whitelock  replied 
that  this  remedy  would  be  worse  than  the  disease  ; 
that  being  general  he  had  less  envy  and  less  dan- 
ger than  if  he  were  called  king,  but  not  less  power 
and  real  opportunities  of  doing  good.  And  he  rep- 
resented to  him  that  he  was  environed  with  secret 
enemies  :  that  his  own  officers  were  elated  with 
success  ;  "  many  of  them,"  said  he,  *'  are  busy  and 
of  turbulent  spirits,  and  are  not  without  their  de- 
signs how  they  may  dismount  your  excellency, 
and  some  of  themselves  get  up  into  the  saddle- 
bow they  may  bring  you  down  and  set  up  them- 
selves." Cromwell  would  willingly  have  engaged 
Whitelock  in  his  views ;  but  Whitelock  was  a 
cautious,  temporising  man,  who  generally  chose 
the  safest  part,  and  never  incurred  danger  by  re- 
sisting what  he  could  not  prevent,  or  putting  him- 


136  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

self  in  the  van  when  he  could  remain  with  the 
main  body.  In  speaking  honestly  to  Cromwell, 
he  risked  nothing  ;  the  feeling  which  his  dissent 
excited  was  ratherdisappointment  than  displeasure, 
and  he  would  be  esteemed  more  for  his  sincerity.* 
His  concurrence  was  of  little  moment.  Crom- 
well could  count  upon  his  faithful  services  when 
the  thing  was  'done,  and  he  had  plenty  of  other 
agents  who  were  ready  to  go  through  with  any 
thing.  That  memorable  scene  soon  followed  (20tli 
April,  165.3)^  when  Cromwell  turned  out  the  par- 

[*  See  the  whole  of  this  remarkable  conversation  in  White- 
lock,  pp.  648-651,  ed.  1732. 

"  Whitelock  was  a  man  who,  taking  at  first,  in  honest  con- 
viction, what  is  called  the  patriotic  aside,  adhered  to  it  when 
men  as  honest  as  himself,  of  far  higher  intellectual  powers, 
and  greater  moral  courage,  went  over  to  the  king's  party. 
He  conformed  to  all  changes  during  the  course  of  the  rebellion, 
not  from  any  greedy  or  ambitious  views,  but  because  he  hoped 
that  every  change  might  be  the  last,  and  dreaded  the  danger 
of  any  attempt  at  restoring  that  order  of  things  which  had 
been  by  violence  subverted.  The  weight  of  his  respectable 
character  was  thus  thrown  mto  whatever  scale  preponderated. 
But  in  all  other  respects  he  was  so  estimable  a  man — never  in- 
juring others,  and  seeking  only  to  secure,  not  to  aggrandize, 
himself— that  the  royalists  regarded  him  with  no  asperity ; 
they  looked  upon  his  conduct  as  proceeding  entirely  from 
moral  timidity,  unmixed  with  any  worse  motive  ;  and  when 
he  appeared  at  Charles  II. 's  court,  to  make  his  excuses,  the 
king,  with  that  good-nature  which— though  it  w-as  far  from 
covering  the  multitude  of  his  sins — gave  a  grace  to  much  that 
he  did  and  to  everything  he  said,  bade  him  go  home  and  take 
care  of  his  fourteen  children." — Southey,  Letter  to  John  Mur- 
ray  J  Esq,  "  touching^'  Lord  Nugent,  p.  31.] 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  137 

liament,  and  locked  the  doors  of  the  house  of  com- 
'  mons.  Whitelock  says,  that  "  all  honest  and 
prudent  indifferent  men  were  highly  distasted  at 
this  ;  that  the  royalists  rejoiced ;  that  divers  fierce 
men,  pastors  of  churches  and  their  congregations, 
were  pleased,"  as  were  the  army  in  general, 
officers  as  well  as  soldiers  ;  and  he  illustrates  the 
principles  upon  which  some  of  the  officers  were 
pleased  with  the  change,  by  what  one  of  them  said 
to  a  member  of  the  ejected  parliament,  whose  son 
was  a  captain,  that  *'  this  business  was  nothing 
but  to  pull  down  the  father  and  set  up  the  son,  and 
no  more  but  for  the  father  to  wear  worsted,  and 
the  son  silk  stockings," — so  sottish,  says  White- 
lock,  were  they  in  the  apprehensions  of  their  own 
risings  !* — but  he  has  not  thought  proper  to  ob- 
serve, how  much  more  sottish  and  less  excusable 
were  those  persons  who  had  set  them  the  example 
of  pulling  down  authority.  Some  of  the  severest 
republicans  in  the  army  served  Cromwell  in  this 
his  first  act  of  explicit  despotism.  Ludlow,  who 
was  in  Ireland,  had  some  distrust ;  yet,  he  says 
that  he  and  they  who  were  with  them  thought 
themselves  obliged,  by  the  rules  of  charity,  to 
hope  the  best,  and,  therefore,  continued  to  act  in 
their  places  and  stations  as  before.  They  had 
never  exercised  that  rale  of  charity  toward 
Charles  I. 

[*  Whitelock,  p.  555,  ed.  1732.] 
12* 


138  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

X 

1^'^  The  lord  general,  sucli  was  his  title  now,  called 
a  meeting  of  officers  to  deliberate  concerning  what 
should  next  be  done.  Lambert  was  for  intrusting 
the  supreme  power  to  a  few  persons,  not  more  than 
ten  or  twelve.  Harrison  would  have  preferred 
seventy,  being  the  number  of  which  the  Jewish 
Sanhedrim  consisted.  The  deliberation  ended  in 
summoningSto  a  parliament  a  hundred  and  twenty- 
eight  persons  chosen  by  the  council  of  officers, 
from  the  three  kingdoms.  The  members  thus 
curiously  chosen,  and  notorious  by  the  name  of 

\^  Praise-God  Barebones'  parliament,  met  accordingly 
(4th  July,  1653),  and  were  harangued  by  Crom- 
well, who  acknowledged  the  goodness  of  the 
Lord,  in  that  he  then  saw  the  day  wherein  the 
saints  began  their  rule  in  the  earth  !  They  began 
their  business  in  a  saintly  manner,  by  "  a  day  of 
humiliation  in  which  God  did  so  draw  forth  the 
hearts  of  the  members  both  in  speaking  and  prayer, 
that  they  did  not  find  any  necessity  to  call  for  the 
help  of  any  minister."  They  were,  indeed,  for 
dispensing  with  ministers  as  well  as  kings,  looking 
upon  the  function  as  anti-christian,  and  upon  tithesi 
as  absolute  Judaism  ;  and  the  better  to  insure  the! 
abolition  of  that  odious  order,  they  proposed  to  sell 
all  the  college  lands,  and  apply  the  money  in  aid 
of  taxes.  It  had  been  intended  that  they  should 
sit  fifteen  months,  and  that,  three  months  before 
/      [*  8th  Jmie,  1653.    See  a  summons  in  Whitelock,  p.  557.] 


LIFE    OF    CROMWEjJi^Y  TCf  T  If  ^^?fi  S 

their  dissolution,  they  should  make  choice  of  others 
to  succeed  them  for  a  year,  the  three  kingdoms       ^ 
being  then  to  be  governed  by  annual  parliaments, 
each  electing  its  sucapsor.     Five  months,  how- 
ever, convinced  Cromwell  that  the  only  use  to  be 
made  of  them  was,  to  make  them  surrender  their 
power  into  his  hand,  acknowledge  their  own  in- 
sufficiency (which   they  might   do   with   perfect 
truth),  and  beseech  him  to  take  care  of  the  com- 
monwealth.    The  council  of  officers  were  now  j 
again  in  possession  of  the  supreme  power ;   and  / 
they  declared  that  the  government  of  the  common-  V     J 
wealth  should  reside  in  the  single  person  of  Oliver  f 
Cromwell,  with  the  title  of  lord  protector,  and  a  I 
council  of  one-and-twenty  to  assist  him.*  -/ 

Constitutions  were  made  in  that  age  as  easily 
as  in  this,  and  the  articles  were  not  more  durable 
then  than  they  are  now,  though  wiser  heads  were 
employed  in  making  them.  The  name,  however, 
which  Oliver  chose  for  his  piece  of  parchment 
was  the  Instrument  of  Government.!  It  was  there 
ordained,  that  the  protector  should  call  a  parlia- 
ment once  in  every  three  years,  and  not  dissolve 
it  till  it  had  sat  five  months  ;  that  the  bills  which 
were  presented  to  him,  if  he  did  not  confirm  them 

[*  He  was  installed  lord  protector  16th  December,   1653,   ^/ 
and  proclaimed  the  19th.      The  Barebones'  parliament  ended 
I2th  December,  1653.] 

ft  See  at  length  in  Whitelock,  pp.  571-677,  ed.  1732.] 


140  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

within  twenty  days,  should  become  laws  without 
his  confirmation;  and  his  select  council  should  not 
be  more  in  number  than  twenty-one,  nor  less  than 
thirteen  ;  that  with  their  0nsent,  he  might  make 
laws  which  should  be  binding  during  the  intervals 
of  parliament ;  that  he  should  have  power  to  make 
peace  and  war  ;  that  immediately  after  his  death, 
the  council  should  choose  another  protector,  and 
that  no  protector  after  him  should  be  general  of 
the  army.  The  first  use  which  he  made  of  his 
power  was  to  make  peace  with  the  Dutch  and  with 
Portugal,  in  both  cases  upon  terms  honorable  and 
advantageous  to  England  ;  nor  could  any  measures 
have  been  more  popular  than  these,  which  deliver- 
ed the  nation  in  the  first  instance  from  an  expensive 
and  bloody  contest,  and  in  the  other,  restored  to  it 
its  most  productive  foreign  trade.  France  and 
Spain  were  emulously  courting  the  friendship  of 
the  fortunate  usurper  :  Ireland  and  Scotland  thor- 
oughly subdued,  their  governments  united  with 
that  of  England,  by  the  right  of  conquest,  and  both 
countries  undergoing  that  process  of  civilization 
which  Cromwell,  like  the  Romans,  carried  on  by 
the  sword.  When  Charles  L,  was  treating  with 
the  Scotch,  before  he  put  himself  into  their  hands, 
he  said  in  a  letter  to  the  French  agent,  whom  they 
authorized  to  promise  him  protection,  "  Let  them 
never  flatter  themselves  so  with  their  good  suc- 
cesses ;  without  pretending  to  prophecy,  I  will 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  141 

foretell  their  ruin,  except  they  agree  with  me, 
however  it  shall  please  God  to  dispose  of  me." 
They  had  reason  to  remember  this  when  they  were 
under  Cromwell's  government.  His  orders  to 
Monk,  whom  he  left  to  complete  the  subjugation 
of  the  country,  were,  that  if  he  found  a  stubborn 
resistance  at  any  place,  he  should  give  no  quarter, 
and  allow  free  plunder ;  orders  which  Monk  ob- 
served with  the  utmost  rigor,  and  "  made  himself 
as  terrible  as  man  could  be."*  "  He  subdued 
them,"  says  Clarendon,  "  to  all  imaginable  tame- 
ness,  though  he  had  exercised  no  other  power  over 
them  than  was  necessary  to  reduce  that  people  to 
an  entire  submission  to  that  tyrannical  yoke.  In 
all  his  other  carriage  toward  them,  but  what  was 
in  order  to  that  end,  he  was  friendly  and  com- 
panionable enough  ;  and  as  he  was  feared  by  the 
nobility  and  hated  by  the  clergy,  so  he  was  not 
unloved  by  the  common  people,  who  received  more 
justice  and  less  oppression  from  him,  than  they 
had  been  accustomed  to  under  their  own  lords." 
A  more  thorough  conquest  was  never  effected: 
everything  was  changed,  the  whole  frame  of 
government  new-modelled,  the  Kirk  subjected  to 
the  sole  order  and  direction  of  the  commander-in- 
chief  ;  the  nobles  stripped  of  their  power  ;  the  very 
priests  tamed  and  muzzled — and  all  this  was  sub- 
mitted to  obediently  ! — in  reality,  it  had  brought 
[*  Clar.  Hist.,  vi.,  494,  ed.  1826.] 


142  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

with  it  so  much  real  benefit  to  a  barbarous  people, 
that  at  the  restoration,  Lord  Clarendon  admits  "  it 
might  well  be  a  question,  whether  the  generality 
of  the  nation  was  not  better  contented  with  it  than 
to  return  into  the  old  road  of  subjection." 

A  more  rigorous  system  had  been  pursued  in 
Ireland,  a  system  severer  than  even  the  mode  of 
Roman  civilization.  The  utter  extirpation  of  the 
Irish  had  been  intended  !  but  this  was  found  "  to 
be  in  itself  very  difficult,  and  to  carry  in  it  some- 
what of  horror,  that  made  some  impression  upon 
the  stone-hardness  of  their  own  hearts."  The  act 
of  grace  (so  it  was  called!)  for  which  this  purpose 
was  commuted,  was  the  most  desperate  remedy 
that  ever  was  applied  to  a  desperate  disease.  All 
the  Irish  who  had  survived  the  ravages  of  fire, 
sword,  famine,  and  pestilence,  and  who  had  not 
transported  themselves,  were  compelled,  by  a  cer- 
tain day,  to  retire  within  a  certain  part  of  the  prov- 
ince of  Connaught,  the  most  barren  of  the  island, 
and  at  that  time  almost  desolate  ;  after  that  time, 
if  man,  woman,  or  child,  of  that  unhappy  genera- 
tion, were  found  beyond  the  limits,  they  were  to 
be  killed  like  wild  beasts ;  the  land  within  that 
circuit  was  to  be  divided  among  them,  and  the  rest 
of  the  island  was  portioned  out  among  the  con- 
querors, who  used  the  right  of  conquest  with 
greater  severity  than  Romans,  Saxons,  or  Nor- 
mans, had  exercised  in  Britain.     It  is  worthy  of 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.      ,  143 

remark,  that  not  a  voice  was  heard  against  this 
tremendous  act  of  oppression,  such  horror  had  the 
Irish  massacre  excited,  and  so  irreclaimable,  in 
the  judgment  of  all  men,  was  the  nature  of  the 
inhabitants  :  even  when  new  settlers  established 
themselves  there,  "though  what  virtue  of  the  soil," 
says  Harrington,  "  or  vice  of  the  air  soever  it  be, 
they  came  still  to  degenerate  :"  and  of  the  descen- 
dants of  English  colonists  there,  it  was  said  in 
Elizabeth's  time,  that  they  were  Hihernis  ipsis 
Hiherniores.  So  little  were  their  rights,  or  even 
their  existence,  taken  into  the  account,  that  Har- 
rington thought  the  best  thing  the  commonwealth 
could  do  with  Ireland  was  to  farm  it  to  the  Jews 
for  ever,  for  the  pay  of  an  army  to  protect  them 
during  the  first  seven  years,  and  two  millions  a 
year  from  that  time  forward ! — What  was  to  be 
done  with  the  Irish,  whether  they  were  to  be 
made  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water,  or  to 
become  Jews  by  compulsion,  he  has  not  explained. 
For  the  sufferings  of  the  Irish,  however,  Crom- 
well is  not  responsible  ;  and  under  the  order  which 
he  established,  if  it  had  continued  for  another 
generation,  the  island  would  have  been  in  a  better 
state  than  any  which  its  authentic  history  has  yet 
recorded  :  for  there,  as  in  Scotland,  a  more  equit- 
able administration  was  introduced  than  that  which 
had  been  destroyed. 

While  the  protector  was  feared  and  respected 


144  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

by  foreign  powers,  and  obeyed  submissively,  if  not 
willingly,  in  Ireland  and  the  sister  kingdom,  his 
state  at  home  was  full  of  uneasiness  and  danger. 
Though  orders  were  given,  when  he  summoned 
his  first  parliament,  that  no  persons  should  be 
chosen  who  had  borne  arms  on  the  king's  part',  nor 
the  sons  of  any  such,  and  though  care  was  taken  to 
return  such  members  as  were  believed  to  be  the 
best  affected  to  his  government,  yet  in  the  first 
debate  his  authority  was  questioned ;  and  one  mem- 
ber declared  that,  "  for  his  own  part,  as  God  had 
made  him  instrumental  in  cutting  down  tyranny  in 
one  person,  so  now  he  could  not  endure  to  see 
the  nation's  liberties  shackled  by  another,  whose 
right  to  the  government  could  not  be  measured 
otherwise  than  by  the  length  of  his  sword,  which 
alone  had  emboldened  him  to  command  his  com- 
manders." He  attempted  to  curb  this  spirit,  by 
excluding  all  who  would  not  subscribe  an  engage- 
ment to  be  true  and  faithful  to  the  Lord  protector  j 
yet  they  who  took  the  engagement  were  found  so 
impracticable  for  his  purposes,  that,  taking  advan- 
tage of  the  letter  of  his  instrument,  he  dissolved 
them  at  the  end  of  five  lunar  months. 

Cromwell  was  now  paying  the  bitter  price  of 
successful  ambition.  His  good  sense  and  his 
good  nature  would  have  led  him  to  govern  equit- 
ably and  mercifully,  to  promote  literature,  to  cher- 
ish the  arts,  and  to  pour  wine  and  oil  into  the 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  14j5 

wounds  of  the  nation.  But  as,  in  the  language  of 
the  schools,  uno  absurd^  dato,  sequuntur  millia,  so 
in  politics  and  in  morals,  are  error  and  guilt  fear- 
fully prolific :  the  disease  of  the  root  taints  the 
remotest  branches.  Having  attained  to  power  by- 
sinister  means,  Cromwell,  in  spite  of  himself,  was 
compelled  to  govern  tyrannically  ;  he  was  equally 
in  danger  from  the  royalists,  the  greater  though 
inactive  part  of  the  nation,  among  whom  indignant 
spirits  were  continually  at  work,  and  from  the 
levellers,  by  whose  instrumentality  he  had  raised 
himself  to  his  insecure  and  miserable  elevation. 
He  could  not  rely  even  upon  the  officers  of  that 
army  by  which  alone  he  was  supported  ;  and  he 
had  so  little  confidence  in  the  soldiers,  that  he 
once  intended  to  bring  over  a  Swiss  regiment  as  a 
guard  for  his  own  person,  and  had  sent  an  agent 
to  take  measures  for  raising  it ;  but  having  per- 
ceived how  unpopular  such  a  manifestation  of  his 
fears  would  be,  and  how  dangerous,  he  was  deter- 
red from  his  purpose.  His  best  security  was  in 
the  irreconcileable  difference  between  the  royalists 
and  the  fanatics,  the  latter  willingly  aiding  him 
to  oppress  the  former,  of  whom  he  stood  most  in 
fear.  It  was  confidently  affirmed,  that  the  propo- 
sal for  massacring  the  whole  royal  party  was  more 
than  once  brought  forward  in  his  council  of  ofiicers,' 
as  the  only  expedient  to  secure  the  government ; 
13 


146  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

but  Cromwell,  who  was  neither  devil  enough  to 
commit  the  crime,  nor  fo^l  enough  to  destroy  the 
balance  by  which  he  was  preserved,  never  would 
consent.  The  royalists,  in  other  respects,  had 
little  reason  to  praise  his  moderation.  After  all 
the  plunder  and  exactions  which  they  had  suffered, 
and  the  compositions  which  they  had  paid  for  their 
own  estates,  Cromwell  now,  by  his  own  authority 
and  that  of  his  council,  issued  an  order  for  decim- 
ating their  estates,  that  is,  that  they  should  pay  a 
tenth,  not  of  the  income,  but  of  the  value  of  the 
property ;  and  a  declaration  accompanied  this 
order,  that,  because  of  their  inherent  malignity,  they 
must  not  wonder  if  they  were  looked  upon  as  a 
common  enemy  ;  and  that  they  "  must  not  expect 
to  be  prosecuted  like  other  men,  by  the  ordinary 
forms  of  justice,  and  to  have  the  crimes  proved  by 
witnesses,  before  they  should  be  concluded  to  be 
guilty."  If  the  loyal  part  of  the  people  had  at 
first  lent  the  king  the  fifth  part  of  what,  after  in- 
finite losses,  they  were  compelled  to  sacrifice  to 
his  enemies  at  last,  Lord  Clarendon  says,  that 
Charles  would  have  been  enabled  to  preserve 
them  and  himself.  "  The  Lord  deliver  us,"  says 
Laud,  "  from  covetous  and  fearful  men !  The 
covetous  will  betray  us  for  money,  the  fearful  for 
security."  He  did  not  live  to  see  how  the  persons, 
who  acted  under  the  influence  of  these  base  pas- 
sions, brought  upon  themselves  worse  evils  than 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  147 

cfbuld  have  befallen  them  in  the  manly  discharge 
of  their  duties. 

The  better  to  exact  this  forced  payment,  and 
with  a  view,  also,  toward  imbodying  a  sort  of  na- 
tional army,  which  might  be  employed  in  case  of 
need  to  balance  or  repress  the  troops,  whose  fidel- 
ity he  distrusted,  he  divided  England  into  twelve 
cantons,  each  of  which  was  placed  under  the  ab- 
solute power  of  a  major-general.  These  bashaws, 
as  Ludlow  calls  them,  were  to  levy  all  imposts, 
sequester  those  who  did  not  pay  the  decimation, 
and  commit  to  prison  any  persons  whom  they 
suspected ;  and  there  was  no  appeal  from  any  of 
their  acts,  but  to  the  protector.  In  each  canton  he 
raised  a  body  of  horse  and  foot,  who  were  only  to 
be  called  out  in  cases  of  necessity,  and  then  to 
serve  a  certain  number  of  days  at  their  own  charge ; 
if  they  served  longer,  they  were  to  receive  the 
same  pay  as  the  army,  but  they  were  to  be  under 
the  major-general  of  their  respective  canton.  A 
certain  salary  was  allowed  them,  that  of  a  horse- 
man being  eight  pounds  a  year.  But  the  advan- 
tage which  he  might  have  derived  from  this  kind 
of  yeomanry  force  (that  of  all  other  which  may 
most  reasonably  be  depended  upon  for  the  preser- 
vation of  order),  brought  with  it  a  new  danger  from 
the  power  of  the  majors-general ;  and  Cromwell 
removed  these  bashaws  in  time,  without  difficulty, 


148  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

because  they  had  made  themselves  odious  to  the 
nation. 

He  called  his  next  parliament*  with  more  con- 
fidence, because  the  war  in  which  he  had  engaged 
against  Spain  had  made  him  master  of  Jamaica, 
and  two  treasure-ships,  with  a  frightful  destruction 
of  the  Spaniards,  had  been  taken.  The  treasure 
was  brought  in  wagons  from  Portsmouth  to  Lon- 
don, and  paraded  through  the  city  to  the  Tower. 
Most  of  the  members  took  the  test  which  he  re- 
quired ;  they  passed  an  act  binding  all  men  to  re- 
nounce Charles  Stuart  and  his  family  ;  they  declar- 
ed it  high  treason  to  attempt  the  life  of  the  pro- 
tector, and  granted  him  larger  supplies  than  had 
ever  before  been  raised,  one  of  the  imposts  being 
a  full  year's  rent  upon  all  houses  which  had  been 
erected  in  and  about  London,  from  before  the  be- 
ginning of  the  troubles.  Finally,  they  offered  him 
the  title  of  king,  which  was  the  great  object  of  his 
ambition.  The  republicans,  from  whom  he  ex- 
pected most  danger,  had  been  carefully  excluded 
by  management  in  the  elections,  or  by  the  test. 
Vane  and  Harrison  were  in  confinement,  for  Crom- 
well feared  the  craft  of  the  former,  and  the  enthu- 
siasm of  the  latter,  which  placed  him  above  all 
means  of  corruption  or  intimidation.  Yet  there 
was  more  opposition  than  he  had  anticipated  ;  and 
one  member  applied  to  him  in  the  house,  the  words 

[*  3d  September,  1654,  dissolved  31st  January,  1654-'5.] 


I 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  149 


of  the  prophet  to  Ahab,  "  Hast  thou  killed  and  also 
taken  possession  ?"  Lambert,  who  had  hitherto 
forwarded  all  the  views  of  Oliver,  because  he  ex- 
pected to  be  the  next  protector  himself,  being  the 
second  man  in  the  army,  declared  against  a  propo- 
sal which  would  have  been  fatal  to  his  ambition : 
and  there  were  members  bold  enough  to  say,  that 
if  they  must  submit  to  the  old  government,  they 
would  much  rather  choose  to  obey  the  true  and 
lawful  heir  of  a  long  line  of  kings,  than  one  who 
was  but  at  best  their  equal,  and  had  raised  himself 
by  the  trust  which  they  had  reposed  in  him.  Upon 
such  opposition  Cromwell  would  have  trampled, 
if  he  had  found  support  in  his  own  family  and 
nearest  connexions.  But  his  sons  were  without 
ambition.  Richard,  the  eldest,  indeed  was  believed 
to  be  at  heart  a  royalist ;  Desborough,  who  had 
married  his  sister,  and  Fleetwood,  who  was  his 
son-in-law  (having  married  Ireton's  widow),  with 
a  stupid  obstinacy  objected  to  his  assuming  the 
name  of  king,  though  they  had  no  objection  to  his 
exercising  a  more  absolute  authority  than  any 
king  of  England  had  ever  possessed.  Colonel 
Pride,  who  had  purged  the  parliament  to  make  him 
what  he  was,  procured  a  petition  from  the  majori^ 
ty  of  the  officers  then  about  London,  against  his 
taking  the  title  ;  and  information,  to  which  he  gave 
full  credit,  was  conveyed  to  him,  that  a  number  of 
men  had  bound  themselves  by  oath  to  kill  him, 
13* 


150  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

within  so  many  hours  after  he  should  accept  it 
Under  these  disheartening  circumstances,  after  a 
long  and  painful  struggle  with  himself,  and  some 
curious  discussions  with  the  deputation  of  mem- 
bers, who  were  sent  to  urge  his  acceptance,  he 
concluded  by  refusing  it  upon  the  plea  of  con- 
science.* 

In  thus  yielding  to  men  of  weaker  minds  than 
his  own,  Cromwell  committed  the  same  error 
which  had  been  fatal  to  Charles,  The  boldest 
course  would  have  been  the  safest ;  the  wisest 
friends  of  the  royal  family  were  of  opinion,  that  if 
he  had  made  himself  king  de  facto ^  and  restored  all 
things  in  other  respects  to  the  former  order,  no 
other  measure  would  have  been  so  injurious  to  the 
royal  cause.  Everything  except  the  name  was 
given  him  ;  the  power  of  appointing  his  successor 
in  the  protectorship  was  now  conferred  upon  him 
by  parliament,  and  the  ceremony  of  investitute  was 
performed  for  the  second  time,  and  with  a  pomp 
which  no  coronation  had  exceeded.  The  speaker 
presented  him  with  a  robe  of  purple  velvet,  a 
mixed  color,  to  show  the  mixture  of  justice  and 
mercy,  which  he  was  to  observe  in  his  administra- 
tion j  the  bible,  "  the  book  of  books,  in  which  the 
orator  told  him  he  had  the  happiness  to  be  well 

[*  8th  May,  1657.  On  the  16th  December,  1653,  he  was 
installed  lord  protector,  and  on  the  26th  June,  1657,  inaugurated 
lord  protector.    Whitelock,  p.  571  and  p.  QQ^^  ed.  1732.] 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  151 

versed,  and  which  contained  both  precepts  and  ex- 
amples for  good  government  ;"  a  sceptre,  not  unlike 
a  staff,  for  he  was  to  be  a  staff  to  the  weak  and 
poor  ;  and  lastly,  a  sword,  not  to  defend  himself 
alone,  but  his  people  also :  "  If,"  said  the  speaker, 
*'  I  might  presume  to  fix  a  motto  upon  this  sword, 
as  the  valiant  Lord  Talbot  had  upon  his,  it  should 
be  this  :  Ego  sum  Domini  Protectoris,  ad  protegen- 
dum  populum  meum — I  am  the  Lord  Protector's,  to 
protect  my  people." 

So  great  was  the  reputation  which  Cromwell 
obtained  abroad  by  his  prodigious  elevation,  the 
lofty  tone  of  his  government,  and  the  vigor  of  his 
arms,  that  an  Asiatic  Jew  is  said  to  have  come  to 
England  for  the  purpose  of  investigating  his  ped- 
igree, thinking  to  discover  in  him  the  lion  of  the 
tribe  of  Judah !  Some  of  his  own  most  faithful 
adherents  regarded  him  with  little  less  veneration. 
Their  warm  attachment,  and  the  more  doubtful 
devotion  of  a  set  of  enthusiastic  preachers,  drug- 
ged the  atmosphere  in  which  he  breathed  ;  and 
yet,  white  his  bodily  health  continued,  the  natural 
strength  of  his  understanding  prevailed  over  this 
deleterious  influence,  and  he  saw  things  calmly, 
clearly,  and  sorrowfully,  as  they  were.  Shak- 
spere  himself  has  not  imagined  a  more  dramatic 
situation  than  that  in  which  Cromwell  stood.  He 
had  attained  to  the  possession  of  sovereign  power, 
by  means  little  less  guilty  than  Macbeth,  but  the 


152  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

process  had  neither  hardened  his  heart,  nor  made 
him  desperate  in  guilt.  His  mind  had  expanded 
with  his  fortune.  As  he  advanced  in  his  career, 
he  gradually  discovered  how  mistaken  he  had  been 
in  the  principles  upon  which  he  had  set  out ;  and, 
after  having  effected  the  overthrow  of  the  church, 
the  nobles,  and  the  throne,  he  became  convinced, 
by  what  experience  (the  surest  of  all  teachers)  had 
shown  him,  that  episcopacy,  nobility,  and  monarchy, 
were  institutions  good  in  themselves,  and  necessa- 
ry for  this  nation  in  which  they  had  so  long  been 
established.  Fain  would  he  have  repaired  the 
evil  which  he  had  done  ;  fain  would  he  have  re- 
stored the  monarchy,  created  a  house  of  peers,  and 
re-established  the  episcopal  church.  But  he  was 
thwarted  and  overruled  by  the  very  instruments 
which  he  had  hitherto  used  ;  men  whom  he  had 
formerly  possessed  with  his  own  passionate  errors, 
and  whom  he  was  not  able  to  dispossess  :  persons 
incapable  of  deriving  wisdom  from  experience,  and 
so  short-sighted  as  not  to  see  that  their  own  lives 
and  fortunes  depended  upon  the  establishment  of 
his  power  by  the  only  means  which  could  render 
it  stable  and  secure.  Standing  in  fear  of  them, 
he  dared  not  take  the  crown  himself;  and  he  could 
not  confer  upon  the  rightful  heir  : — by  the  murder 
of  Charles,  he  had  incapacitated  himself  from  ma- 
king that  reparation  which  would  otherwise  have 
been  in  his  power.     His  wife,  who  was  not  elated 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  153 

with  prosperity,  advised  him  to  make  terms  with 
the  exiled  king,  and  restore  him  to  the  throne  ;  his 
melancholy  answer  was,  "  Charles  Stuart  can  never 
forgive  me  his  father's  death  ;  and  if  he  could,  he 
is  unworthy  of  the  crown."  He  answered  to  the 
same  effect,  when  the  same  thing  was  twice  pro- 
posed to  him,  with  the  condition  that  Charles 
should  marry  one  of  his  daughters.  What  would 
not  Cromwell  have  given,  whether  he  looked  to 
this  world  or  the  next,  if  his  hands  and  been  clear 
of  the  king's  blood  ! 

Such  was  the  state  of  Cromwell's  mind  during 
the  latter  years  of  his  life,  when  he  was  lord  of 
these  three  kingdoms,  and  indisputably  the  most 
powerful  potentate  in  Europe,  and  as  certainly  the 
greatest  man  of  an  age  in  which  the  race  of  great 
men  was  not  extinct  in  any  country.  No  man  was 
so  worthy  of  the  station  which  he  filled,  had  it  not 
been  for  the  means  by  which  he  reached  it.  He 
would  have  governed  constitutionally,  mildly,  mer- 
cifully, liberally,  if  he  could  have  followed  the 
impulses  of  his  own  heart,  and  the  wishes  of  his 
better  mind  ;  self-preservation  compelled  him  to  a 
severe  and  suspicious  system  :  he  was  reduced  at 
last  to  govern  without  a  parliament,  because,  pack 
them  and  purge  them  as  he  might,  all  that  he  sum- 
moned proved  unmanageable  ;  and  because  he  was 
a  usurper,  he  became  of  necessity  a  despot.  The 
very  saints,  in  whose  eyes  he  had  been  so  precious, 


154  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

now  called  him  an  ''  ugly  tyrant,"  and  engaged 
against  him  in  more  desperate  plots  than  were 
formed  by  the  royalists.  He  lived  in  perpetual 
danger  and  in  perpetual  fear.  When  he  went 
abroad  he  was  surrounded  by  his  guards.  It  was 
never  known  which  way  he  was  going  till  he  was 
in  the  coach  ;  he  seldom  returned  by  the  same  way 
he  went ;  he  wore  armor  under  his  clothes,  and 
hardly  ever  slept  two  nights  successively  in  one 
chamber.  The  latter  days  of  Charles,  while  he 
looked  on  to  the  scaffold,  and  endured  the  insolence 
of  Bradshaw  and  the  inhuman  aspersions  of  Cook^ 
were  enviable  when  compared  to  the  close  of 
CromwelPs  life.  Charles  had  that  peace  within 
which  passeth  all  understanding  ;  the  one  great 
sin  which  he  had  committed  in  sacrificing  Straf- 
ford had  been  to  him  a  perpetual  cause  of  sorrow 
and  shame  and  repentance  ;  he  received  his  own 
death  as  a  just  punishment  for  that  sin  under  the 
dispensations  of  a  righteous  and  unerring  Provi- 
dence ;  and  feeling  that  it  had  been  expiated,  when 
he  bowed  his  head  upon  the  block,  it  was  in  full 
reliance  upon  the  justice  of  posterity,  and  with  a 
sure  and  certain  trust  in  the  mercy  of  his  God. 
Cromwell  had  doubts  of  both.  Ludlow  tells  us, 
that  at  his  death  "  he  seemed,  above  all,  concern- 
ed for  the  reproaches,  he  said,  men  would  cast 
upon  his  name,  in  trampling  on  his  ashes  when 
dead !"     And  the  last  sane  feeling  of  religion  which 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  155 

he  expressed  implied  a  like  misgiving,  concerning 
his  condition  in  the  world  on  which  he  was  about 
to  enter — it  was  a  question  to  one  of  his  fanatical 
preachers,*  "  if  the  doctrine  were  true,  that  the 
elect  cbuld  never  finally  fall  ?"  Upon  receiving  a 
reply,  that  nothing  could  be  more  certain,  "  Then 
am  I  safe,"  he  said,  **  for  I  am  sure  that  once  I  was 
in  a  state  of  grace."  The  spiritual  drams  which 
were  then  administered  to  him  in  strong  doses, 
acted  powerfully  upon  a  mind  debilitated  by  long 
disease,  and  disposed  by  the  nature  of  that  disease 
to  delirium.  He  assured  his  physicians,  as  the 
presumptuous  fanatics  by  whom  he  was  surround- 
ed assured  him,  that  he  should  not  die,  whatever 
they  might  think  from  the  symptoms  of  his  dis- 
order, for  God  was  far  above  nature,  and  God  had 
promised  his  recovery.  Thanks  were  publicly 
given  for  the  undoubted  pledges  of  his  recovery, 
which  God  had  vouchsafed  !  and  some  of  his  last 
words  were  those  of  a  mediator  rather  than  a  sin- 
ner, praying  for  the  people,  as  if  his  own  merits 
entitled  him  to  be  an  intercessor.  Even  his  death 
did  not  dissipate  the  delusion.  When  that  news 
was  brought  to  those  who  were  met  together  to 
pray  for  him,  "  Mr.  Sterry  stood  up  and  desired 
them  not  to  be  troubled :  for,"  said  he,  "  this  is 
good  news  !  because,  if  he  was  of  great  use  to  the 
people  of  God  when  he  was  among  us,  now  he 
[*  John  Goodwin.] 


156  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

will  be  much  more  so,  being  ascended  to  heaven 
to  sit  at  the  right  hand  of  Jesus  Christ,  there  to 
intercede  for  us,  and  to  be  mindful  of  us  on  all  oc- 
casions !"* 

The  life  of  this  most  fortunate  and  lesflfet  flagi- 
tious of  usurpers  might  hold  out  a  salutary  lesson  for 
men  possessed  with  a  like  ambition,  if  such  men 
were  capable  of  learning  good  as  well  as  evil  les- 
sons from  the  experience  of  others.  He  gained 
three  kingdoms  ;  the  price  which  he  paid  for  them 
was  innocence  and  peace  of  mind.  He  left  an 
imperishable  name,  so  stained  with  reproach,  that 
notwithstanding  the  redeeming  virtues  which 
adorned  him,  it  were  better  for  him  to  be  forgotten 
than  to  be  so  remembered.  And  in  the  world  to 
come but  it  is  not  for  us  to  anticipate  the  judg- 
ments, still  less  to  limit  the  mercy,  of  the  All-mer- 
ciful. 

Let  us  repeat,  that  there  is  no  portion  of  history 
in  which  it  so  much  behooves  an  Englishman  to 
be  thoroughly  versed  as  in  that  of  Cromwell's  age. 
There  it  may  be  seen  to  what  desperate  lengths 

[*  Cromwell  died  in  a  whirlwind,  on  the  3d  September,  1658. 
On  the  23d  November,  he  was  burried  in  Henry  VII. 's  chapel 
with  more  than  regal  solemnity.  At  the  restoration  his  body 
was  taken  up  and  hung  at  Tyburn.  Forty  years  afterward, 
Dryden  alludes  to  the  storm  in  which  the  protector  died,  in  a 
letter  to  his  cousin,  Mrs.  Steward.  Many  of  the  large  trees 
in  St.  James's  park  were  torn  up  by  the  roots. 

He  was  taken  ill  at  Hampton  court,  and  died  at  Whitehall.] 


LIFE    OF    CROMWELL.  157 

men  of  good  hearts  and  laudable  intentions  may 
be  drawn  by  faction.  There  may  be  seen  the 
rise,  and  the  progress,  and  the  consequences  of 
rebellion.  There  are  to  be  found  the  highest 
examples  of  true  patriotism,  sound  principles,  and 
heroic  virtue,  with  some  alloy  of  haughtiness  in 
Strafford,  of  human  ir^rmities  in  Laud,  pure  and 
unsulhed  in  Falkland,  and  Capel,  and  Newcastle, 
and  in  Clarendon,  the  wisest  and  the  best  of 
English  statesmen,  the  most  authentic,  the  most 
candid,  the  most  instructive  of  English  historians. 
From  the  history  of  that  age,  and  more  especially 
from  that  excellent  writer,  the  young  and  ingenu- 
ous may  derive  and  confirm  a  just,  and  generous, 
and  ennobling  love  for  the  institutions  of  their 
country,  founded  upon  the  best  feelings  and  surest 
principles ;  and  the  good  and  the  thoughtful  of  all 
ages  will  feel  in  the  perusal;  with  what  reason 
that  petition  is  inserted  in  the  Litany,  wherein  we 
pray  the  Lord  to  deliver  us  "  from  all  sedition, 
privy  conspiracy,  and  rebellion ;  from  all  false 
doctrine,  heresy,  and  schism :  from  hardness  of 
heart  and  cqntempt  of  his  word  and  command- 
ments,"— sins  which  draw  after  them,  in  certain 
and  inevitable  consequence,  the  heaviest  of  all 
chastisements  upon  a  guilty  nation.* 

[*  After  the  murder  of  the  king  change  followed  change, 
but  no  change  brought  stability  to  the  state,  or  repose  to  the 
uation,  not  even  when  the  supreme  and  absolute  authority  was 
14. 


158  LIFE    OF    CROMWELL. 

usurped  by  a  man  who  of  all  others  was  the  most  worthy  to 
have  exercised  it,  had  it  lawfully  devolved  upon  him.  Crom* 
well  relieved  the  country  from  presbyterian  intolerance  ;  and  he 
curbed  those  fanatics  who  were  for  proclaiming  king  Jesus, 
that,  as  his  saints,  they  might  divide  the  land  among  them- 
selves. But  it  required  all  his  strength  to  do  this,  and  to  keep 
down  the  spirit  of  political  and  religious  fanaticism,  when  his 
own  mind  by  its  own  strength  had  shaken  oflf  both  diseases. 
He  then  saw  and  understood  tho^eauty,  and  the  utility,  and 
the  necessity  of  those  establishments,  civil  and  ecclesiastical, 
over  the  ruins  of  which  he  had  made  his  way  to  power  ;  and 
gladly  would  he  have  restored  the  monarchy  and  the  episcopal 
church.  But  he  was  deterred  from  the  only  practicable  course, 
less  by  the  danger  of  the  attempt  than  by  the  guilty  part 
which  he  had  borne  in  the  king's  fate  ;  and  at  the  time  when 
Europe  regarded  him  with  terror  and  admiration  as  the  ablest 
and  most  powerful  potentate  of  the  age,  he  was  paymg  the. 
bitter  penalty  of  successful  ambition,  consumed  by  cares  and 
anxieties,  and  secret  fears,  and  only  preserved  from  all  the 
horrors  of  remorse  by  the  spiritual  drams  which  were  admin- 
istered to  him  as  long  as  he  had  life.— Southey,  Book  of  the 
Church  J  ed.  1841,  p.  509.] 


THE   END. 


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